


Disciple

by writteninhaste



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-12
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-05 05:43:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writteninhaste/pseuds/writteninhaste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy doesn't know what to do, now that her religion has torn itself apart at the seams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act I: Genesis

**Author's Note:**

> We're not given a lot of backstory for Darcy in the movie, so I've taken the liberty of giving her one. I haven't written in a long time and I'm writing this now as a brain-saver whilst revising so it may go through revisions both during and after writing.

_Don’t make me wait._

_Brand me with your smile,_

_bind me with laughter,_

_my aerodynamic,_

_backwards-erotic,_

_not very Socratic,_

_philosophical and bent_

_Lord of near-misses,_

_unbelievable, inexact, rare,_

_too full, overspent._

_Drag me to Bedlam,_

_or to the dreary hearafter._

_I don’t care. I don’t care._

_Anywhere!_

_~_   **Trickster, Elizabeth Vongvisith**

 

* * *

 

Darcy was ten when Buffy the Vampire Slayer was first shown on television. It was the birth of a life-long love affair. Buffy joined the ranks of Xena, the Spice Girls and Sailor Moon in a cavalcade of pre-teen feminist ideals and dark, brooding heartthrobs. The world was her oyster and girl power was her new regime. Darcy was ten and she still had the remains of baby fat, and glasses. Her father drank too much and her mother smoked and their small house in a middle-of-nowhere town was stifling. Darcy was ten and she went out every night with a branch she had sharpened herself and a cross to ward of the vampires.

She was eleven when she chose to worship chaos.

oOo

It was a joke at first – something she and her friends cooked up in the clubhouse in Kath’s backyard. It was a squeeze – a remnant of halcyon days when they were all smaller, lighter and far more carefree. Beth was being a wet blanket as usual and Lucy, ever the mediator, was trying to come up with a compromise.

“Come on, Beth – it’s not real. It’s just a game.”

“How d’you  _know_  it’s not real? It could be? Everyone round here’s always saying there’s no such thing as ghosts or aliens either but we know  _that_ ’s not true, don’t we?”

Darcy bit her lip at that because Beth was right. They’d all four of them been out by the cemetery that night, they knew what they had seen. There were things in this world that couldn’t be explained and it was a waste of energy to even try. Maybe worshipping chaos wasn’t such a good idea.

“Well how about a step down from chaos, then?” She suggested, leaning forward to snatch the book of mythology Kath had borrowed from the library. It was big and unwieldy and the spine cracked in protest when Darcy flicked through the pages. She propped the book open at the index and ran her finger down the text until something likely caught her eye: _trickster_. That would do nicely.

The others watched, silent, as Darcy thumbed her way back to the relevant page, spinning the book round so they could all see.

“If Chaos is out, how about tricks. They’re fairly harmless right? I mean, you may not be able to fight Chaos but to beat a trick you just have to be the smarter one, right?”

Beth still looked dubious but Lucy and Kath were nodding their heads and Kath was already spinning through the pages, discarding gods with a flick of her wrist.

“Nope, nope, maybe, nope.” Lucy tried to tug her hand away from the page, force her to read slower when Kath jabbed her finger onto a name and grinned. “ _Him_.”

Darcy rocked up onto her knees to peer at the page upside-down. They’d reached the section on Norse gods and the image emblazoned on the page stared back at them with empty eyes.

“Oh, he’s cute.” Lucy whispered and then blushed when Beth burst out into raucous cackles.

Kath swatted at her half-heartedly but Darcy found herself agreeing with the assessment. The man in the picture was handsome – maybe not the hulky, dreamboat way that was so popular with teenage girls everywhere right now but he  _was_  captivating.

Darcy drew the book out of Kath’s lap and into her own, running the pads of her fingers across his name. “So that’s it then.” She said. “We’re going with Loki.”

oOo

In the town where Darcy lived there was a shop filled with odds and ends. It was run by a woman named Sue. She had a crooked incisor and a blue rinse and she had made her home in Glastonbury until she married. Where her husband went was always left unsaid, no matter how many times Darcy visited this strange little shop tucked between the Blockbuster and the Dry Cleaner. Her mother didn’t like Sue. Sue was a child of the seventies – with peace signs painted across her breasts and henna in her hair. Out of all of her friends, Darcy was the only regular visitor to Sue’s shop. Sue would take her into the back room and give her vials of Holy Water, thread an Ankh onto a cord and loop it around Darcy’s neck. Darcy was always half-sure Sue was simply humouring her. But it was nice to have an adult who at least pretended it wasn’t make-believe. Darcy would go to the shop – two, three times a week – after school. Hop up onto the stool Sue kept by the till and watch as the woman dusted or counted money or blew smoke rings into the air.

Darcy was never quite sure how Sue made the rent. No one ever seemed to come in when Darcy was there and from what she could tell the stock never changed – Sue never seemed to make a sale. But she remained hearty and well and the day after Darcy and her friends decided on Loki for a patron, she had a gift waiting.

It was a little statue made of wood – no taller than a carton of milk. The wood was rough, un-sanded beneath Darcy’s fingertips and Darcy wondered if Sue had made this herself – had sat in her back room whittling away until a figure of a man was left striding on the base. There were shadows beneath his cheekbones and two horns curling from his head. He was naked and Darcy felt a prickle at the base of her spine as she curled her fist around the statue’s shoulders.

“That’s for you. You and no one else, you got that?” Sue said. “I know you and your friends want him as a patron but they’re not sincere. Not like you. Would have been interesting, had you chosen Chaos, but I think He suits you better.”

 Darcy looked up into Sue’s face, “How’d you know about that?”

 Sue snorted. “Not from your friends, if that’s what you’re thinking. I know you go running ‘bout the woods at night, just like I know you’ve been haunting that cemetery like ghouls. Leave the dead in peace, Darcy – they never did anything to you.” Darcy nodded, cuddling the statue against her chest. Sue had always seemed like the type of woman who knew more than she was letting on. She was Darcy’s ‘Giles’ and Darcy knew you were supposed to listen to your Watcher.

 “Get yourself an altar.” Sue said. “Nothing fancy, can be a bare bit of floor if you want it – but a special place, a place you don’t use for anything else. Learn to pray – say His name, you don’t want just anybody listening. Never ask for a boon more than three times a decade and be careful when you do. And keep it secret, Darcy. Your father doesn’t strike me as the kind of to hold with ‘all this nonsense’”. She made air quotes as she said it, smiling, for all that she wasn’t joking. Darcy nodded again and promised solemnly. The clock on the wall behind Sue’s head began to chime and Darcy swore. She had to get home – she had homework and she had to help with dinner tonight. Tucking the statue into her backpack, Darcy pulled the zipper tight. She’d have to jog a bit at this rate – she didn’t want it falling out.

 She was halfway out the door, her  _thank yous_  and her  _goodbyes_  said, when Sue called after her. “If you start to dream, Darcy, pay attention. We learn more true things while we’re sleeping than we do anywhere else.”

Darcy frowned but Sue merely lifted an open hand in a wave and turned away, disappearing into the back room.

 Darcy ran all the way home and hid the statue in a shoebox beneath her bed.

 When she went to Sue’s shop the next day there was a  _FOR SALE_  sign hanging in the window and the shop was empty.

 oOo

Darcy’s friends treated Loki like a game. They would whisper together in the dark, huddled in sleeping bags on the floor or crouching in the woods when they could sneak away. They’d bring incense and candles and draw pentagrams upside down because it seemed like the thing to do and together they would chant his name:  _Loki, Loki, Loki_. Darcy joined them without saying anything – she didn’t want to be teased – but in her head she whispered apologies and prayers, hoped that Loki wouldn’t be offended. And afterwards, when her parents were sleeping and her friends had gone home again, she would prick her finger with a pin and press a blood drop to the statue’s feet.

She was never sure if she was doing the right thing. There was no one she could ask and nothing in the County Library had helped. Darcy was guided only by instinct and every time she prayed she added an apology at the end:  _Dear Loki, sorry if I’m doing this wrong_.  _Love, Darcy._

The years melted away and worshiping Loki became a sporadic activity for the group at best. Darcy still knelt before her alter (the floor of her wardrobe, covered with a towel when not in use) but for the others it was an activity for rainy days. There was no sign of the dreams Sue had mentioned. A few times she woke thinking she ought to be remembering something but it slipped like sand between her fingers the more she tried to hold on. If Kath or Beth or Lucy had similar experiences, they didn’t say anything. Kath swore that all she dreamed about at night was Justin Timberlake and how he was going to swoop in and carry her away, once he’d realised that Britney Spears wasn’t good enough for him anyway.

 Beth, in a remarkable act of self-assertion for a girl who had yet to turn fourteen, declared she’d rather have Britney Spears and then stared at them all defiantly until Darcy had laughed and hugged her so hard Beth could hardly breathe.

Lucy had stopped hanging out with them after that and Darcy had been prepared to tear into her for it, but Beth had shaken her head and said she’d known it would happen. Darcy had wanted to hug Beth then, apologise on behalf of the world but she didn’t know what to say. So she bought them both a fruit roll-up instead. They spent that long hot summer, lazing around on Beth’s front porch and doing chores for her mom for money. Kath flit between them and Lucy, and Darcy was left to watch as Beth’s knuckles tightened into white lines every time they passed someone from school. In the end it was Kath who solved the issue, sitting with them as they wrapped each other’s hair and waited for high-school to start.

“She’s not going to tell anyone.” Kath said, gesturing for the blue thread Darcy held with her elbow, her fingers occupied with pinching Beth’s curls into place. “I mean she thinks it’s a sin and, you know, I’m sorry Beth but I still think it’s a little strange and all, so I kinda get that  _but_ ,” she added, as she saw Darcy bristling, “I say to each their own and God loves us anyway.” Darcy settled back down on the carpet with a sigh. “My point is, she knows it’s not her secret to tell. You guys were friends for  _eleven years_  – you know she’s not like that. She’s not going to try and turn people against you.”

Darcy was pretty sure Kath would have added more, defended Lucy just past the point where Darcy could accept it (in her book nothing made it okay to walk out on a friend no matter what Beth said) but Beth’s mom called them to dinner and the conversation was dropped in favour of lasagne and the ice-cream they were always given for dessert.

 oOo

High School was the dawning of a new era for them all. Everyone had a persona; Darcy found her niche and stuck to it. She was the ‘quirky’ girl – the forerunner to the hipster. She was the girl who knew every band, who wore too much eyeliner and a crown of daisies in her hair. She played soccer with Kath and sang with Beth in the choir – sat on the floor of the auditorium reading manga whilst the two of them rehearsed with the Drama Club on Tuesdays. She dated and she hung around in the library when school was over just so she wouldn’t have to go home. The result was surprisingly good grades and if at times, Darcy would close her eyes and pray for change – well, how often did prayers come true anyway.

Darcy spent high school working for minimum wage at the church bookstore and tending bar for cash-in-hand at Sal’s. She was years shy of twenty-one but no one in town seemed to mind and Sal made sure she was home by eleven on weeknights. She kissed Trent Baxter beneath the bleachers and cried when she caught him kissing Jenny Walsh. She held Kath’s hair back after Junior Prom whilst she vomited in the bushes and then held back Beth when Charity Raynes called her a dyke.

It was far from perfect, but it was a role which she knew how to play. She knew all her cues and didn’t have to think too hard about her character because no one was paying that much attention in the first place.

She kept her devotion to herself. Over time, her altar had become more intricate. It was still a temporary thing – an installation she arranged in secret and packed away with care. She had a little book in which she wrote her prayers. Beth had given it to her for her sixteenth birthday along with a tiara and a glittered wand that lit up when swung through the air. Beth had offered it as a journal but to Darcy it became so much more. Filled with pages of devotion that book became her church, her bible and her sepulchre. It was always in her possession and Darcy lost herself to prayer. If Beth understood the ramifications of her gift she never said anything. Darcy was left to her own devices and it was at that time that the dreams began.

oOo

At first, Darcy wrote it off as hormones. Erotic dreams of shadowy men were dismissed as a natural by-product of the swirling mess of oestradiol tumbling through her bloodstream.  But the dreams were always the same: a man with milk-white limbs who bit at her breasts and slipped a hand between her thighs. Darcy knew he was her Loki; knew his name in the way she knew the sky was blue and the sun, yellow. He was her God and she was his Disciple and the world became clear for her in a way it never was before.

A quick blitz of the internet and she had more formal rituals for follow. She still worried that she was doing it wrong. Occult shops were thin on the ground in rural Virginia and she had to substitute most of her equipment. Nevertheless, she told herself the intent was what was important and in those private moments, Darcy found peace. Lying on the roof of Beth’s house, watching the fading stars, Darcy confessed that her worship was the only thing which saved her from being a sullen, angry teenager.

“There were times,” she said, “last year. When I thought about ending it, about running away – just taking whatever money I could find in that house and just  _leaving_. They wouldn’t notice I was gone and I’d think  _why not_? But now – I’m happier, I guess.”

“That’s good.” Beth’s voice was amiable but vague. She didn’t really  _understand_ ; Beth didn’t believe in much of anything except Chemistry and fact. Gods, to her, were comfort blankets for weaker minds. She thought religion was a crutch but she was too polite to say it to Darcy’s face.

 “You hear from Duke yet?” Darcy asked.

 “Yeah.” Beth said. “I didn’t get in.”

 Darcy winced, she could hear the hollow disappointment in Beth’s voice. “Sorry. But you know it’s their loss right? I mean, you’re really smart. Scary smart at times, I thought Zargoski was going to orgasm when he saw your SATS score.” She was clutching at straws, trying to stave off the urge to hug Beth and curse Duke and remind her how brilliant she was. Beth  _hated_  that sort of thing, would turn away rather than accept a shoulder to cry on – even when she needed it.

Beth laughed and if it sounded more broken than happy Darcy wasn’t about to comment on it. “I think guidance councillors ought to get some sort of special training on how to deal with unforeseen levels of glee. That was just inappropriate.”

Darcy snorted, then flailed as she felt herself slipping. She panicked for a moment before righting herself, clutching at Beth’s arm as she wiggled herself into a comfortable position again. They lay in silence, looking at the carbon-paper sky and shivering slightly. Eventually, quietly, Darcy asked, “So why do you think they rejected you?”

“Not enough distinguishing features?” Beth said. “I mean, I had my grades but other than that I only had choir and the minimum community service. It was probably a bad idea to give up Drama – might have given me an edge.”

“When the choice is Drama Club or a job, there’s really not a contest.” Darcy pointed out. Darcy had been saving for college since before she’d come to the brutal realisation that a soccer scholarship wasn’t on the cards for her.

“I know. I know. But hindsight’s 20-20, I guess. Maybe I should have prayed more – seems it worked for you.”

 Darcy ignored the jab. Her dreams had never ended – she’d walked with her God, talked with him, laid flowers at his feet. The name  _Loki_ was tattooed across her skin beneath her left breast and she took comfort in her faith. She’d stayed true, and in return Loki had given her what she’d begged for all these years: freedom from this place. Darcy couldn’t begrudge Beth her frustration. Beth had  _wanted_  Duke; wanted it like Darcy had never wanted anything in her entire life and yet Darcy was the one with a ticket to elsewhere whilst Beth was still waiting in the wings. Acceptance to Duke would have meant a mountain’s worth of student loans and debt for the foreseeable future but the way Beth’s eyes had shone when she spoke about the possibilities made Darcy think it would have been worth it.

She thought of her own acceptance letter from Culver, tucked between the pages of her Spanish text book, and the way her mother had sworn at her when Darcy told her she’d got in. Beth’s mom had hugged Darcy tight and whispered  _congratulations_  against her hair. She’d smelled like sugar cookies and wood polish and Darcy’s eyes had pricked with tears.

“We’re going to leave this town far behind.” Darcy said, wrapping her fingers tightly around Beth’s and squeezing. “We’re going to leave and we’re going to be brilliant and we’re going to rule the world – one comic book store at a time.”

Beth laughed, thick and a little wet, and squeezed back just as tight. “We’re going to be gods.” She whispered. “We’re going to be giants.”

Darcy curled herself around Beth’s arm and thought  _We are, we are, we are._

oOo

Beth got in to Georgia Tech. It wasn’t Duke, wasn’t the dream – but it was almost as good. Beth’s parents packed up the car with Beth’s room and Beth and Darcy waved until her arm was sore and their car was a black speck in the horizon.

Darcy waited three days and then she drove out of town without looking back. The sky was hazy with warmth and all too soon the silhouette of the diner and the auto-shop that stood like sentinels on the edge of town had faded into the distance. It was a ninety-minute drive to Willowdale and Darcy was in a truck she’d bought herself, with a bum radio and no AC. She yanked out the headphones from her iPod one-handed and hit play, not caring which song she’d selected. Bon Jovi’s early work started blaring forth in tinny ecstasy and Darcy gripped the wheel until her knuckles glowed white and promised herself that from now on things would be different. She sang along at the top of voice and sent every word to Loki.

 oOo

College was – well, it was  _college_. It was simultaneously everything and nothing like the movies said it would be. Darcy saw people living the Hollywood version all around her but Darcy couldn’t seem to make friends and flirting was suddenly beyond her abilities. There were frat boys and keg stands and everyone seemed obsessed with sex. She knew there must be more than she was seeing, but try as she might, Darcy couldn’t seem to make it past the curtain. All of a sudden she felt her dreams had aged her before her time. She had slept with the same man every night for nearly five years and now she was confronted with a wealth of people who couldn’t hope to compare. This was supposed to be Darcy’s freedom, and yet she felt like she was constantly missing the foothold, like every time the train stopped to let her on, she was standing on the wrong platform. She earned herself a reputation for being slightly strange and didn’t know how to make it go away.

In the end her roommate took pity on her. Anne was two years older than everyone else: a Fresher for the second time after beating cancer, who didn’t like the taste of alcohol and had no patience for mainstream culture. She dragged Darcy to a mixer for Amnesty International and Darcy felt like Guilt was slapping her in the face because she’d never paid their flyers any attention and she knew they did good work –

And then, between standing awkwardly by the door and having Anne haul her onto the impromptu dance-floor, Darcy found herself with friends. They were a ragtag bunch and some of them were with Amnesty and some of them were not and none of them gave a flying fuck whether or not she was (except Kevin who was sort of evangelical about the whole thing) and suddenly, fiercely Darcy felt like she’d come  _home_.

Later that night, she dragged her Loki statuette out from the box beneath her bed and sat on her bed with her ankles folded in her lap. She couldn’t light the candles in the dorm and she had yet to find an appropriate space for her altar, so she simply made do. She cradled that statue in her palms and said  _thank you, thank you, thank you_  with all her might. Her parents didn’t care and Beth was miles away but for the first time in months she’s not alone and Darcy could swear she’d never been so grateful.

oOo

She was introduced to Jane Foster almost by accident. She’d been taking a physics class because they wouldn’t let her graduate without one and at the end of the lecture the professor announced that there was an internship going for anyone who was interested. Darcy almost tuned out at that point because she’d finally elected to major in PoliSci and astrophysics was so not her thing, but then there was the mention of a fairly healthy stipend and the chance for extra credit and Darcy was already mentally composing her CV.

She’d planned to meet Anne for coffee but when she got there Anne was talking to a woman with sun-streaked hair and a wide, bright smile. Anne waved her over, made the introductions and Darcy pushed her glasses up her nose as she shook Dr Foster’s hand.

“I’m applying to be your intern,” she said, knowing she was never going to get the position but thinking it couldn’t hurt to get herself on the radar, “got any tips for how to impress the boss at interview?”

Jane blinked at her, puzzled, no doubt wondering why a girl who was introduced to her as a PoliSci major was applying for an physics internship, but was too polite to ask the obvious question:  _so which lecture series are you hoping to skip with the extra credit?_  She was saved by the bell as the fire alarm went off, and people all over swore and spilled their coffee in surprise. The baristas were rolling their eyes heavenward and ushering everyone out into the quad, cursing campus security for another untimely drill. Darcy picked up her bag and followed the rest, peeved, but thankful this drill wasn’t in the middle of the night.

Jane got a phone call whilst they were all waiting to be let back inside and wandered off, leaving Darcy to mooch sips of Anne’s iced-mocha without embarrassment. Jane didn’t come back and Darcy shrugged the whole encounter off but sent her CV in anyway. She was surprised when she received an invite for an interview in return, more so when she was actually offered the job. Then miffed, after it turned out she was the only applicant and had been accepted by default.

oOo

The statue and its shoe box went with her to New Mexico. Darcy wrapped her fingers around the wooden figure every night, ran her thumb across the horns and stargazed in the desert. She lay there night after night, telling herself the stories of the constellations and she burnt a candle every Saturday and said a prayer.

Then it all went to hell in a hand-basket. Jane hit a Norse god with her car ( _twice_ ) and his brother tried to destroy the Puente Antiguo. Darcy thought of the figurine beneath her bed, of Thor telling his friends that they had to stop  _Loki,_ looked at the destruction of the town and was abruptly sick.

oOo

In the aftermath, Darcy was left clutching the figure of a god she’d prayed to since she was a child, sitting in her bed, and wanting to smash the statue to the ground, to break its face, to curse and cry and never see the thing again. But she couldn’t get her fingers to uncurl from around the base and the thought of damaging her idol made her stomach flip. She cradled the figurine against her stomach even as she cried, and wondered what the hell she was supposed to do, now that her religion had come apart the seams.

In the end, she prayed. She asked for explanation and for hope and then she begged some more for kindness. She knelt until her joints were numb and her skin stuck to the floor and then she packed the box away and tied it up with string and taped it shut and shoved it in a larger box which she then put in a bag. Jane looked at her strangely but she was too distracted to ask any questions.

When Darcy went to bed that night her heart ached as though it might be breaking and she breathed very slowly to keep away the tears.

As she closed her eyes, she heard her mother’s voice from when she was very young:  _as I lay me down to sleep, I pray the lord my soul to keep_. Darcy whispered the words under her breath, and for the first time in years, she didn’t dream.

 

 


	2. Act II: Precipice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for the Avengers (mild)

_Loki knows exactly_

_what will make you hurt._

_He  sees your weakness_

_clearly, like rainwater_

_through a glass window,_

_and if you are particularly_

_lucky (or unlucky)_

_rather than getting_

_succor and indulgence,_

_you get a hot, sharp knife_

_stabbing hard and deep,_

_right into the middle of_

_that open and festering wound._

 

_~_ **Tough** **, Elizabeth Vongvisith** _  
_

Darcy was twenty-six and employed by S.H.I.E.L.D full-time when Loki set foot on Earth for the second time. His thwarted invasion was three years behind them and Darcy had felt safe behind the shield of Asgardian justice. What had happened to facilitate his escape Darcy didn't know, but the fact remained that Asgard declined to share the information (even Thor had been unaware) and as a result, when the battle came, they were all of them woefully unprepared.

Darcy had been snatched up the moment she graduated – undoubtedly because she knew too much and had proved to be reasonably intelligent. Two years in she’d been handed her own team – tasked with tracking inexplicable (read: magical/other-worldly) events and passing that data off to the relevant teams. Darcy spent her days buried up to her eyeballs in the internet and press cuttings, the minifridge beneath her desk stocked with nothing but Rockstars,  a packet of caffeine pills shoved into the pen-cup of her desk-tidy.The Avengers had made their home in NYC and Jane was buried somewhere in the bowels of D.C. – transferred from New Mexico after the Bridge Project proved a roaring success. From the infrequent communiqués Darcy received she knew Jane missed the desert, but D.C. was closer to New York so the grumbling was minimal at best. Darcy had wanted to go with – to cling to the last vestige of familiarity and the comfort of a familiar face – but S.H.I.E.L.D stationed her in Los Angeles, so Darcy took comfort in the weather and cursed the traffic and spent her days off collecting comic books.

Beth called from time to time, giddy with a fiancée and a job and life in Chicago. She bitched about the wind and plans for the wedding and spent a third of her time repeating how lucky she was to have a job when her co-workers were being laid-off.  S.H.I.E.L.D didn’t make people redundant. It fired them for incompetence but it wasn't the sort of agency that suffered budget cuts. Money poured into S.H.I.E.L.D. like water down a drain – though the results were far more productive – and one of the perks was that personnel numbers didn’t get cut. Darcy hummed along in agreement with Beth, because she could appreciate her friend’s position even if she couldn’t directly relate.  Darcy wondered what would have happened to her if she’d never applied to work for Jane, if Thor had never crash-landed in the desert or if Darcy had just walked away.

The only thing she knew for sure was that if none of that had ever happened, she would still have been praying to Loki faithfully. Nowadays, her prayers were aimless – they wandered from her lips to the ether without a recipient. It lacked all satisfaction, but Darcy prayed from habit these days and she couldn’t quite muster up the energy to break the pattern. She still had the candles and the altar cloth – smelling of beeswax and matches. The candles were half-burnt from their last use and the wicks were no doubt broken by transport along the way.

Her old prayer book resurfaced by mistake. Darcy was digging through boxes at the top of the wardrobe when the book tumbled from its hiding place and smacked her in the face. It left a welt across her cheek and a bruise at the corner of her eye. Darcy glared at the dark, red-leather binding and snatched the book off the floor.

No one used the roof of her building and Darcy took her book and her box of matches and jimmied the lock on the service door to gain entrance. She hunkered down against the wind and went through four matches before the book caught fire. The smell was almost putrid. The leather cracked in the heat and the pages curled and blackened, ink disappearing as the flames consumed everything. Darcy cried bitter tears and told herself that it was best this way. Remove the temptation, deny all thoughts of worship and maybe He would stay away. _Go away_ , she whispered, _go away – no one wants you here. You’re not my god anymore. Just stay away_.

She was on the phone to Beth again, discussing when she would be available for a dress fitting, when the soap opera she was watching on mute gave way to an emergency broadcast on the television. The camera panned across the New York skyline, and Darcy was treated to a view of the Statue of Liberty wreathed in flames.

oOo

Darcy was kept busy at S.H.I.E.L.D for almost a week straight. It was all hands on deck and Darcy ate, slept and showered at the office. Scrubs pilfered from Medical offered a change of clothes but Darcy was forced to forgo underwear, too wired to even care. It was clear that Loki knew he wouldn’t win the peoples’ loyalty – not after what he did last time – but he seemed to have abandoned thoughts of kingship and was simply hoping to destroy.

Loki was a one-man guerrilla war: a bombardment of attacks day after day, short and brutal and painfully affected. One camera caught him screaming at Thor and though the wind tore away the words, it was still possible to read his lips: _I won’t let you forget me._ The Avengers were down by one – Iron Man tied up with War Machine in the Middle East – and without him the team was a barrage of false starts: manoeuvres that required another player and orders that were barked out to someone who wasn’t there. They’d become so used to fighting as a team that it was throwing them badly off-balance not to have Stark there.

S.H.I.E.L.D weren’t doing any better. Their systems were going haywire and Darcy had been commandeered as a code-monkey trying to get the network back online so they’d have communications with HQ and the New York office. There was some sort of virus ravaging their hard-drives and Darcy, close to hysterics from lack of food and sleep, thought _Poltergeist in the Machine._ No one could track the body count and Black Widow was missing. Hawkeye was in some sort of magical-coma and the news crews kept catching snatches of Thor raging at the heavens, begging Loki to end the conflict.

Loki eventually complied, but not before he damn-near sliced Captain America’s face in two.

Darcy was watching the live feed when she saw one of Loki’s blade split Roger’s face from brow to chin. She screamed, forgetting for a moment that he couldn’t hear her and she couldn’t help. Someone nearby was swearing at her but Darcy was stuck staring at the screen, at Loki’s face as it peered into the camera – as if he’d heard her, as if he could _see_ her. Darcy felt trapped, like a rabbit in the headlights, as Loki’s face flickered with some strange emotion and then collapsed into snarling rage. He reached out a hand and pulled; Darcy was nearly jerked off her feet.

Around her the walls began the shake, the building groaning as the earth below it began to ripple like curtains in the wind. Light bulbs burst in a shower of sparks and Darcy ducked as glass rained down upon her head. She stared at the T.V. in horror as Loki spat in the cameraman’s direction and then disappeared without a trace. The earth fell still and Darcy was left gasping for air and shaking. He knew who she was. He’d found her. And this was all her fault.

oOo

Darcy nearly _sobbed_ in frustration as once again the patch to the system failed to work, random files still zipping across her screen as the virus took everything they had. Her hands were shaking too badly for her to type with necessary speed and she felt a moment’s breath away from hyperventilating. Months, or even years, of information were lost in the space between heartbeats and then suddenly, it stopped. The computers froze and then went silent – screens collapsing to black as the power went out in the entire building. Darcy sat in the dark for a handful of moments, listening to the sound of her own breathing, before the backup generators kicked in and their system restarted as if nothing had ever happened. The Section Chief ordered a skeleton crew to remain and the rest were sent home to eat and sleep. Darcy went with them, drained and terrified and heartsick. An agent she thought she knew made her call a taxi, declaring it unsafe for her to drive and Darcy capitulated without a word of protest. She staggered to the cab and then from the taxi to her door.

The apartment was too quiet; Darcy turned on the radio and carried it into the bathroom where the sounds echoed off the tiled walls. She sank to the bottom of her tub, shower soaking through the scrubs she had forgotten to take off. She didn’t get out until the water  had run cold, until she’d washed her hair twice and scrubbed her skin raw trying to clean away the failure. She called for takeout, knowing she would be too tired to eat, and slumped to the floor against the wall opposite her bed.

She could almost _feel_ her Loki statue lurking beneath her mattress. Darcy wanted to tear that statue out, to rip through the tape and string and scream at it _why? why? WHY?_ but she couldn’t bring herself to move and she knew it would be pointless anyway. She stayed awake long enough to collect her pizza, grease warm against her palms, but one bite and then she was done, sliding sideways on her sofa, enough presence of mind to shove the pizza box out of harm’s way before sleep claimed her. She slept eleven hours and woke to a message from her supervisor giving the green-light for two days leave.

There was a text from Jane asking if she was okay. Darcy managed a _fine, just tired_ before her energy gave out on her again. She slumped on the sofa thinking of the devastation that has been wrought within the space of a week. She felt hollow and scraped thin. Hundreds had died and more would die as the rubble of Manhattan was cleared too slowly to save them. In her mind’s eye she could see Loki’s mouth sound the words _forget me_ and she thinks of her prayer book going up in flames as she disavowed all loyalty to a god she had once claimed as a patron.

The thought settled thick and oozing in the space beneath her ribcage. Darcy knew with blinding certainty that this was all her fault. As a child she had hoped to worship chaos, as an teen she had spent her nights as Trickster’s consort and a week ago she had broken every vow she’d ever made.

Her phone vibrated a frantic dance against the sofa leg and Darcy turned ideas over in her head.

oOo

Unlike in the movies, real-life was a slow grind. It took them nearly a month to untangle the mess Loki had woven for them. S.H.I.E.L.D’s reports to the Council said that the system was fixed within three days – they had the greatest minds in the world working for them after all – but the reality was that the network was glitchy for weeks afterward. Files disappeared into the atmosphere only to materialise on a different server entirely. The field offices were constantly swapping data back and forth and Darcy’s freshman year as a CompSci major got more mileage in that one month than the rest of her degree had gotten over the past four years.

Jane stopped by, Thor in tow – for no other reason than he could traverse the continent in half the time of the average jet – and hugged Darcy tight for almost a minute because apparently the bags beneath Darcy’s eyes had become suitcases when she wasn’t looking. Jane was too polite to say it but her entire body language screamed _you look like crap_ and even Thor appeared mildly disconcerted by the pallor of her skin. Darcy took advantage of Jane’s visit to unload some of her more mundane tasks onto Thor. It bought her the hour or two she needed to get to her meeting.

The more she thought about it, the more Darcy was convinced this whole mess is her fault. She visited a few websites, spoke to a woman who ran an occult apothecary out in Hollywood – tried to get a feel for whether her actions could have drawn Loki’s attention. Everyone she spoke to had agreed that breaking vows to a deity was a serious offence, and though their ideas as to the consequences differed, all looked at her askance at the suggestion that she might have broken such a promise.

Darcy had prayed to a force she didn’t understand – one which three quarters of the occult population seemed to have condemned even before Loki brought his invasion. Darcy had tried everywhere she could think of for answers as to how to fix the situation but she had been running low of luck.

There had been a customer, a man, at the apothecary’s, who’d looked at Darcy with something lost between compassion and pity. He was middle-aged and soft around the middle, hair in a ponytail and wire-rimmed glasses balanced on his nose. He had seemed to know, or at least had guessed at, the question she was avoiding asking.

“God’s go where they want.” He told her. “We can influence them – make our temples, our churches, more attractive to them – we can entice them to stay. Sometimes they might even favour us by granting a boon – something we wished or asked for – but we can’t control them. Gods come and go of their own volition; no one’s to blame for the mayhem they may cause along the way.”

It was an absolution, a freedom from her guilt, but the lady behind the counter shifted her weight from one foot to the other – a subtle sign of disagreement.  “But what if I did something wrong?” Darcy said. “What if this is a punishment?”

“I don’t ascribe to the theory of divine punishment.” He told her. “Nature exists in a balance: light and dark, men and women, the good and the bad – I’m sure you’ve heard this before. If we think we’ve made a mistake it’s up to us to tip the scales back to even. All you have to do if figure out what that means for you.”

She had fled from the shop, mumbling a hasty _thank you_ in her wake, and run all the way back to her truck, parked three streets away. Now, bouncing her heels outside UCLA’s main gate, Darcy bit her lip against the memory.

Students flowed and ebbed, balancing textbooks in the crooks of their elbows and clutching cups of iced coffee as amulets against the heat. Balancing on tip toe, Darcy tried to spot Stefan’s head within the crowd. He was a friend from Culver, off doing his doctorate at Pacifica but willing to make the trip to L.A. She must have sounded desperate on the phone because Stefan hadn’t even hesitated. Just said _yes_ and _what do you need?_ They had never been best friends, though they were close enough, but he was the only person Darcy knew who might have access to the kind of books she needed.

_Well_ , she thought, _that wasn’t strictly true._ S.H.I.E.L.D would have the information. But Darcy didn’t want S.H.I.E.L.D to know about this. Not unless it worked.

She was almost a puddle beneath the summer sun when Stefan broke free of the crowd. He had a canvas bag slung over one shoulder and the handles were straining at the seams – weighed down by whatever was inside. He dropped the bag at their feet when he reached her, leaning over to offer a quick hug before breaking away again. He’d lost weight, gained some muscle, and his eyes had the faintly manic gleam of a graduate student with a project due. Darcy immediately felt bad for making him drive all the way to L.A.

They ducked off to one side, Stefan hefting the bag onto one knee as Darcy peered inside. There weren’t any books – but there were enough photocopied pages to violate several laws of copyright. They were stapled together in sections – no doubt dependent upon which book they come from – with Stefan’s chicken scratch scrawled across the corners.

“That’s everything I could find on Loki, on rituals for him or about him – myths, ‘history’ – all of it.” He must have seen something in Darcy’s face because he paused, searching, unwilling to let go of the bag even though Darcy’d wrapped her hands around the handles. “You’re not thinking of trying to stop this guy by yourself are you?” He demanded. “’Cause in case you haven’t noticed there’s a whole team of superheroes in New York already doing that for us.”

“It’s not about that.” Darcy said. “I’m just tipping the scales back to even.”

Stefan looked at her like she was a few numbers short of a lottery ticket but he let go of the bag. “Just promise me you’re not about to do something stupid, alright.”

Darcy forced a smile, made herself laugh. “Nothing more stupid than anything I’ve done before in my life.” She promised and Stefan took the bait, shaking his head, laughing along beside her.

“Yeah, that’s not all that comforting.” He told her, but he was already setting up to leave, body starting to twist away. She gave him a good-bye hug, told him to take care and watched until he disappeared back into the crowd again. She stayed where she was until he’d gone and then she strode back to her car, double time. Someone would notice her absence if she wasn’t back soon – there was only so long a lunch break can last after all – but she had what she wanted and maybe, _hopefully_ , it would have her answers. Maybe it wouldn’t, but Darcy breathed easier all the same.

oOo

Darcy was bent over a report from a Venezuelan tabloid when a shadow fell over her desk. She looked up to find Erik Selvig smiling down at her. His eyes were tired and framed within lines that were shallower the last time Darcy had seen him. He was wearing the same shirt-and-khaki combo as always and that one flash of familiarity made something in Darcy’s chest _hurt –_ sharp and bright and brief.

“Hey, have you got a minute?” He asked and Darcy noted that even his voice seemed worn around the edges.

“Sure, coffee?”

There was a small kitchenette on the far side of the floor she worked on. It was linoleum tiled and smelled faintly of Lysol but there was also first rate coffee machine because apparently S.H.I.E.L.D recognised the correlation between coffee quality and mental output.

Darcy leaned against the fridge as Erik fixed himself a double espresso and loaded her up with shot of caramel and creamer. Darcy’s sweet tooth had became something of a running joke in New Mexico but then again Jane had once been caught eating raw coffee beans because the pot was taking too long, so really they were as bad as each other.

The kitchenette came equipped with a rickety table and three chairs and no-one was going to object if Darcy and Erik commandeered them for ten minutes. The soft whir of the fridge echoed around them and Darcy idly stirred her frothy milk with the kitchenette’s lone teaspoon.

“So what brings you to L.A.?” She asked, when it seems like Erik wasn’t going to speak. “I thought you were still in New Mexico, helping put the labs back together again?”

“I was.” Erik agreed. “But Fury wanted me to consult on something up at headquarters. I’m only here for an hour or so – until the helicopter comes to take me up.”

“You don’t know what the project is?”

Erik shook his head. “My guess is they want a way to track Loki. He’s been quiet these past few months but ten-to-one that just means he’s planning something. Thor’s been like a bear with a burr stick in his tail.”

Darcy eyed him over the top of her mug. “And you’re okay with that? Getting back on Loki’s radar? A tracking project's going to be trial and error. He gets wise to what you’re doing and –”

“I want the bastard caught.” Erik snapped. “I want him clapped in irons.” His knuckles had gone white against the tabletop and Darcy tentatively laid her hand on top of his. He smiled at her, thin and not quite real, but it was a sincere attempt. “Don’t worry about me, Darcy. It’ll take more than one of Loki’s tricks to pull one over on me a second time.”

Darcy wanted to object – it was hardly like any of them could have anticipated the power of Loki’s spear – but Erik only saw a weakness in himself. Darcy wanted to suggest seeing a therapist – to help deal with some of the residual guilt (and possibly the sense of violation) – but the one time the topic had been hinted at, Erik’s face had shut down so quickly and so completely that Darcy was hesitant to bring the subject up again. In the end she settled for the type of mindless platitude that Erik would accept and promised herself she would talk to Jane as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

“This whole thing will be sorted soon enough.” Darcy told him. “You’ll get your machine working, or someone on Asgard will figure out how to catch him and bring him to justice.” _Or I’ll bind him_ , she thought _, I’ll make amends just like that guy told me to and everything will go back to the way it was_.

Erik nodded and spun his empty cup between his fingers. His phone rang, and with a fatherly pat to Darcy’s hand he stood up to answer it. Darcy watched as Erik’s brow creased and flattened in time with the words coming through the headset. “I’m on my way.” He turned to Darcy. “My ride's here a little earlier than scheduled, I’m afraid. Sorry we didn’t get more time to chat.”

“No problem.” Darcy said. “I have to get back to work anyway.”

“I’ll try and stop in again on the return trip.” Erik promised. “Maybe we can get dinner – or lunch if you’re not too busy.”

“I’d like that.” On impulse she hugged him, feeling his breath sigh against her ear as she squeezed him tight. Erik may not have understood, at first, why Jane had elected to take Darcy into the desert, but after everything that had happened they had become quite good friends.

Releasing him, Darcy walked Erik to the elevator, waggling her fingers in a wave as the metal doors slid closed around him. There was a new case-file on her desk when she returned, stamped with the federal eagle, and the words TOP SECRET emblazoned in angry red across the centre. Sighing, Darcy sat down heavily and flicked through the documents: unexplained lights in the forests of Ukraine. _Wunderbar_.

oOo

The research Stefan had provided her with was helpful – to a point. It was tricky, dividing truth from lie and in the end she simply decided that older was better and only paid attention to the earliest versions of the myths. They told her something of Loki’s nature, but that wasn’t what she was really after. Stefan had given her spells as well – summonings, supplications. Those were closer. She didn’t want to _summon_ Loki, though. Well, not just to summon him. She wanted to bind him, lock him down and tie him tight and throw away the key.

This whole venture was as much about betrayal as it was about making things right again. Darcy had _prayed_ to Loki – she had prayed for _years_ – and all she got in return for her loyalty was a destroyed town and a destroyed city and a death-toll reaching _thousands._

In took weeks of snatched moments and days off before she found what she was looking for: a spell of binding. There was no transcription, just a photograph of the vellum in fuzzy black and white. She needed a magnifying glass to make out the letters of some of the words but at last she was left looking at a spell in Middle English. Darcy had her spell, she had her amends – now all she needed was the right ingredients.

oOo

Jane’s voice was obscured by static and the whine of an ambulance as it raced through the streets below. “People normally go _away_ for a vacation, they don’t stay at home – are you sure you’re okay? You’re not sick are you?”

Darcy grunted as she shoved her front door open with her elbow, phone balanced between her ear and shoulder, hands filled with bags and her laptop case. “I just don’t feel like travelling. I just want to veg. – have some me-time. You know how it is.” She nudged one of her grocery bags in with a foot, cursing when it caught on the threshold. “Hang on just a second, Jane.” Clutching her phone with one hand, Darcy used the other to haul her shopping just far enough inside that she could shut the door. The air conditioning was whirring quietly as Darcy threw the lock and put the phone back up to her hear. “Sorry about that.”

“Not a problem.” Jane said. “But are you sure you’re okay just taking a week off to sit at home? You could come to D.C. you know.” It was a kind offer, but Darcy could hear the clack of computer keys in the background and knew Jane was working. If she went to D.C. either Jane would insist on taking time off and then fret about it, or Darcy would insist she didn’t and then be left on her own in a strange city. Besides, she’d taken this week for a reason – it wasn’t just a holiday.

“I’ll be fine, seriously Jane. Don’t worry.”

Jane hummed worriedly but Darcy could hear her relenting. “If you’re sure –”

“I am.” Darcy insisted. “Thank you for the offer though.”

Jane hung up shortly after, having been called away to attend to something beyond Darcy’s clearance level. Darcy sighed and set about unpacking her groceries. The bag from the apothecary sat on the counter, untouched. Darcy wondered again if she should have told someone what she was planning – maybe Erik or Jane. They may not have tried to stop her and it would have been helpful to have someone to bounce ideas off. But that would have meant admitting her childhood worship, owning up to _everything_ and confessing that ever since she’d burnt her prayer book she had been dreaming again. Nightmares, more than dreams. The whole world was on fire and it _hurt_ – she was choking on smoke and she couldn’t breathe. She would wake up feeling like she’d cracked from the heat, outside and in, mouth bone-dry and too dehydrated to even sweat.

Shaking her head, Darcy shut the door to her fridge. A magnet bearing the legend _Santa Fe_ rattled and fell to the floor, cracking at it hit. Darcy shoved the pieces into the bin and breathed to steady her nerves. One more night. One more and then it would all be over. At least, she hoped it would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not familiar with anything other than Judeo-Christian traditions and Egypto-Levantine fairytales so I'm relying heavily on the internet for this one. If anything's come across as glaringly WRONG do let me know. Obviously, I'm going to take some (light) liberties on the basis that this is a difference universe essentially, and so some things will be different. At the same I don't want to mangle things beyond recognition or offend anyone so anyone has any tips please post a comment.


	3. Act III: Penance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight hints at dub-con (very slight)

_I was just a pale, tiny thing_

_fluttering hesitatingly around you,_

_beat by beat, while you seduced me_

_despite my fear and all the warnings._

_I was merely a fuel for your heat._

_You fed yourself, devouring, licking me_

_with a hundred hungry little flames_

_as I crumbled gladly to ash in your embrace._

~ **Moth, Elizabeth Vongvisith**

The dog-star was reaching its zenith as Darcy lit her final candle. The night breeze raised goose pimples on her skin as the wick sucked greedily at the flame. Darcy had elected to use the roof again, unwilling to risk setting her apartment on fire if something went terribly wrong. Her Loki statuette, unearthed from the box she had kept it in and wiped free of dust and grime stood in the circle of candlelight, shadows flickering across its face. Around them stretch the chalk-etched markings of a summoning. The internet had suggested there was a quicker way to go about this – a way to bind Loki from a distance – but anyone could post something on the web these days and Darcy wanted something she felt was _true_. Maybe the spell she had found was no more legitimate than any of the rest, but she had to try. Picking up the silk that lay across her lap, Darcy unwound the skein until eighteen inches of twisted fibres rested in her hands. There were two parts to this spell: the summoning and the binding. The silk wasn’t needed until the second part, but Darcy didn’t want to waste time between the rituals. Loki was hardly going to stand there peaceably whilst she stripped him of his liberty. She only hoped her circle would hold. 

The moon and stars were almost completely obliterated by the smog of L.A., so Darcy was forced to keep time by the glowing numbers of her phone. Sirius would rise at 4:36am – three minutes and counting. It was time. Avoiding the heat of the candles, Darcy reached for the silver letter opener she had placed to the side. Taking a deep breath, Darcy pressed the tip of the blade to her lifeline.

“I cast my spell to summon Loki. Come to me that I may see you. Come to me, be known by me. Loki I call you to me. As I will it, so shall it be.” She drew the letter opener across her palm, skin puckering as the flesh ripped apart beneath the too-dull edge. Biting back a gasp, Darcy smeared the blood against the statues chest and lips.

 Nothing happened. Hopeful, Darcy looked around, casting for some sign that her spell had worked. The shadows of the roof remained unchanged, the same faint breeze from before was still blowing, the faint sounds of whatever traffic remained drifted up from the streets. Her circle was undisturbed and her candles flickered merrily away as innocent as Christmas morning. Disappointed, Darcy clambered to her feet. She had thought it would work. Maybe she hadn’t used the right ingredients. Were the candles wrong? Maybe they’d been different in the Middle Ages.

“You have some nerve, mortal.”

Darcy jumped, hands fumbling for a taser she didn’t have. As she spun the heel of her boot knocked one of the candles, sending it rolling away into the darkness. The light on the remaining eight went out. Breathing heavily, Darcy searched for the place where the shadows were deeper.

“Boo.”

 Adrenaline had Darcy leaping away from the voice, but a vice-like grip curled around her bicep and Darcy found herself dragged back into an embrace. Loki’s breathe was cold against her cheek; she could hear the crack of ice as her earring frosted over. “No one has dared to summon me in over one _thousand_ years.” Loki told her.

“Liar,” Darcy snapped. “I know for a fact that’s not true.” Fear made her stupid, overrode whatever filter might have existed between her brain and her mouth. She sounded angry. Good. Better angry than scared.

Loki hummed thoughtfully, twisting a lock of Darcy’s hair idly around the forefinger of his left hand. “Your precious internet no doubt told you stories of pathetic, gasping infants who wanted me to make all their dreams come true. Who called to me as if I were some sort of pixie from your bedtime tales? They hardly count.” He tugged lightly on her hair. “You and I both know such invocations do not matter. You have to mean it. Mean it in every corner your soul. Why do you think I chose you rather than any of your silly little friends? You were honest in your desire for me.” Darcy kicked, driving the heel of her boot back into Loki’s shin. He hissed, teeth snapping at the side of her head. The wind shivered against her skin and Darcy found herself trapped, unable to do more than wiggle against invisible chains. Loki didn’t move away. He seemed fascinated with the curls of her hair, fingers stroking through the waves as he hummed quietly to himself. “You can relax, you know” He said idly. “I’m not going to kill you.”

 Darcy rolled her eyes, straining to see Loki’s face at the edge of her vision. “You’re not?” Disbelief was evident in her tone.

 “There are rules.” Loki sighed, “Ones even _I_ am forced to follow. You worshipped me for fifteen years. And even though you turned your back on me – disserted _me_ – that still earns you fifteenth years reprieve.”

 “Fifteen?” Darcy wondered. She’d stopped praying to Loki after Puente Antiguo – she only had ten years grace by her reckoning.

 “Oh.” Loki whispered – he sounded amused. “You thought just because you stopped saying my name that they were no longer my prayers? They’ve been mine since you were a _child,_ woman. When I fell from Asgard, so did you. No one else wanted your devotion. Your prayers were left to drift between the branches of Yddrasil and I took them as my own. That was my _right_.” Loki shook her, hard; Darcy gasped as pain lanced through her shoulder blades. He dropped her, suddenly and Darcy grit her teeth as her knees jarred against the rooftop. The roof-tar was rough against her palms, pebbling her skin, rasping against soft flesh.

Darcy stayed where she was, slumped to the ground as Loki stepped over her body. He walked towards the circle where the statue still stood, twitching it up into the air with a flick of his wrist. The candles sprang back to life with a wave of Loki’s hand as he petted the statue, muttering to it.

Seeing that he was distracted, Darcy pulled herself into a crouching position. The door was two – maybe three – metres behind her and to the right. If she could make it, she might be able to raise the alarm with her neighbours. Get the police to call the Avengers. She cursed herself for leaving her phone in her apartment – proper spell casting procedure was not worth her life. Darcy was bracing herself for a sprint across the rooftop when Loki’s voice sounded from right behind her.

“Going somewhere?”

Darcy swore, shoving herself to her feet and deliberately barrelling into Loki’s space as she did so. The god was forced to take a step back – though Darcy had a feeling that had he chosen to stay still she would have ended up fracturing her rotator cuff against his clavicle.

“What do you want?”

“Me? It was not I who performed the summoning, Ms. Lewis. Though I must confess to some surprise. After that little stunt with your prayer book I wasn’t expecting to hear from you again.” Loki’s face shuttered, washing blank as his mind drifted to another place. “The fire licked at my insides.” He said. “I could feel it gnawing at my spine, through my belly, in my heart. It was like poison splashing on my skin. I _burned_ that day. I thought I would go mad from pain. If this is your way of apologising – of trying to creep back into my good graces –I shall tell you plainly you are doing a very, very poor job.”

“I wasn’t trying.”

Loki paused, head cocked as he considered her for a moment. He smiled and Darcy had a moment to think _why’s he smiling_ before a blade of ice ruptured through her gut. She choked, hands clutching at her waist as blood slid through her fingers. Darcy stumbled, dropping to her knees as pain radiated from the wound. Gasping, Darcy tried to crane her neck back to look Loki in the face.

“I thought –” she lost her grasp on the words and her vision flickered grey, “ – free pass?”

Loki grinned, hands spread wide in a parody of innocence. “God of Lies, Ms. Lewis.”

The ground beneath Darcy was soaked and wet. Blood was staining her knees, seeping into her clothes. Loki had hit something important – the blood was flowing fast.

“I can fix this, you know.” He told her. “All it takes is one little spell. Will you do that for me? One spell?”

Darcy nodded weakly, hands slipping as she tried to keep pressure on the wound.

“Swear it.” Loki said.

Darcy grit her teeth. “I swear.”

 “Good.”

There was a burning sensation and then a wash of cold and the world snapped back into focus with a mind-numbing sharpness. Darcy heaved and vomited into her lap. Loki sniffed and took a deliberate step backwards. “Charming.”

Darcy sneered at him, lips sour with bile. Her side ached like a week-old bruise and the place where Loki had stabbed her felt raw and tender. Still, she wasn’t dying on the roof of her apartment building. And she’d just made a deal with the devil.

Loki waved a lazy hand in the direction of her circle. Everything was placed just as it had been when she started: the candles, the statue – even the bundle of black, silk thread. Darcy struggled to her feet and stepped gingerly inside the chalk markings. Her legs were shaking, head thick with the pounding that always accompanies sudden vomiting. Loki watched her with studied impatience as she carefully lowered herself into a sitting position, taking a moment to steady herself as he followed suit.

Curling her nails into her palm, Darcy raised her chin in defiance. “Well?” She demanded, “What am I supposed to be doing.”

Loki smiled, feline and lazy and bloated with self-content. “I believe the spell you had prepared for this evening will suffice.”

Darcy blinked. She stared down at the silk, at the statue and then up again. Loki was watching her the way owners watched vaguely amusing pets – the ones which weren’t very bright but which strove to earn approval anyway. Darcy saw the corners of his eyes crinkle as he tracked her thought process across her face. The spell was one of binding and he wanted her to do it anyway. Why? What was the catch? What were her chances of getting out of this alive?

“Less and less the longer you hesitate.”

Darcy bit back the angry retort that flooded to her lips. Tony Stark might take perverse pleasure in taunting people capable of ripping the human form in half but Darcy like to think herself more sane than that. Or maybe she just had the optimism of youth on her side – she thought she still had things worth living for.

Gritting her teeth, Darcy began winding the skein of silk round and round the statuette. From feet to head she spun the silk until the wood was bound in a fetishistic web. The spell of binding tumbled easily from her lips; the words were learnt by heart. Darcy tried to parse out hidden meanings – some loophole she’d missed that would set Loki free again but the contract seemed airtight. The spell called for Loki to be bound – and bound he would be. “In the sight of all the righteous gods,” Darcy finished, “So shall it be.” She jerked when Loki’s voice joined hers on the final words, echoing into the night as the air suddenly became damp and heavy. Darcy gasped and coughed, fighting the tightness in her ribcage as the warm air squeezed around her, dissipating with a _pop_ when Loki smudged a hand through the chalk circle.

He stood, brushing a hand across the back of his clothes to shake free any particles of dirt or dust. He bowed to her, overly gallent and slightly foppish – the twirl of his long, pale fingers arching out across the space between them. “Thank you, Ms. Lewis. I am most obliged.” Reaching into a pocket, Loki withdrew a thin, silver ring. It seemed to pulse with its own light, delicate and beautifully wrought in the palm of his hand. He offered it to her with another courtly bow. “For you, dearest.”

Darcy stared at him blankly. “What for?” She asked, wondering whether it was safe to prod the ring being offered to her or if Tolkien was about to sit up in his grave and file for violation of copyright.

“An exchange of rings is traditional, I believe,” Loki answered, “upon completion of ones marriage vows. I’ll forgive your oversight in not procuring one for me in return – you hardly knew what you were doing, after all.”

For a moment Darcy’s brain refused to process what she was hearing – numb until encroaching panic chased the inertia away. She replayed the spell in her head, looking at it now, not from the perspective of entrapment, but of unity. Blood began to roar in her ears.

“I will expect a return gift by the end of the week.” Loki informed her. “Something fitting mind – I’ve done you a great honour by consenting to be your husband and a consort should pay proper attention to her king. There now, don’t look so anxious. We shall be very happy together, you and I. And only think: you have secured yourself the only man in all of Midgard who can ensure that the wedding night is truly _magical._ ”

 Darcy swore at him, trying to roll away. She only got so far as untangling her legs before Loki was there, blocking her escape. He crouched, bracketing her escape efforts with his body, tutting at her all the while as if she were a misbehaving child. Darcy struggled when he grabbed her hand, twisting, trying to use her body weight to tear from his grasp but it was pointless. With a glare, Loki uncurled her fingers from her fist, sliding the ring onto her finger with surprising gentleness. He allowed her to snatch her hand back the moment he was done. By tomorrow, bruises would bloom in a bracelet around her wrist, but for now Darcy was more focussed on trying to tug the wedding ring off and shove it down Loki’s oesophagus.

The ring refused to move. Darcy could twist and twist, spinning the thing in endless circles around the base of her finger but the damn thing wouldn’t be moved more than half a centimetre upwards. Darcy swore, lashing out and thumping her fist into Loki’s chest before her brain had even fully processed the movement.

The blow must have caught Loki by surprise, because he tumbled backwards, hitting the rooftop with a _whump_ of leather and cloth. Darcy scrambled to her feet, making a break for the door, skinning her palms and knees in her haste to get away.

 Loki let her go. His laughter bubbled out into the night like melted chocolate, streaming out between the stars as Darcy yanked the access door open and threw herself down the stairs. Her heels caught on the step-edge, sending her tumbling into the darkness, hands scrabbling for the banister as she fell.

She hit the floor with a crack, brain rattling as she collided with the wall, teeth knocking against one another. Above the thumping echo of her heartbeat, Darcy listened for the sounds of Loki following. Nothing. The laughter had stopped and Darcy was alone again. She stayed, huddled in the darkness, until morning came and the cleaners found her – a ring on her finger and white as a sheet.

 oOo

Darcy took the earliest flight to Chicago without telling anyone where she was going. The journey seemed interminable – every twitch of a passenger, every step of a flight attendant, rasping against her already raw nerves. She hadn’t called ahead. Beth would have panicked the moment Darcy opened her mouth and Darcy couldn’t deal with that right now. Logic told her she should be going to Jane – to Jane and S.H.I.E.L.D. and post particularly to _Thor_ – but Darcy needed a friend more than she needed a bodyguard. Beth knew about Loki – about Darcy’s devotion and what it had meant. She didn’t think she could explain any of that to Jane in a way that would make the woman understand. If Darcy was honest with herself, she wasn’t sure Beth would understand either. But in a mother’s absence a sister would have to do – and Beth was the closest thing Darcy had ever had.

By the time the plane touched down, Darcy was oscillating between fury and terror – a red groove bisecting her finger where she had once again tried to tug off the ring. The portly gentleman next to her had taken her for a nervous flier and had spent the flight expounding loudly to his wife on the safety of the modern aeroplane. Distantly, Darcy appreciated the sentiment, but almost all her concentration was given over to strategy and planning. She didn’t know what Loki wanted from her. Was it revenge? To use her in someway? Did he want the knowledge she had on the Avengers. There had to be some side effect to her accidental wedding ceremony that played to his advantage. Simply causing her to panic wouldn’t be enough. Not that she doubted for an instant his love of chaos but disrupting the life of one lowly S.H.I.E.L.D employee was surely way down on his agenda. Loki was always three steps ahead of everybody else. Now all Darcy had to do was catch up to him. And try not to get killed in the process.

The cab driver dropped her off outside Beth’s apartment block, taking her money without comment and speeding away again. The man had spent the entire journey shooting her nervous glances in the rear-view mirror and Darcy wondered just what was written on her face to make the man sweat so. It wasn’t until she was knocking on Beth’s door that it hit her that Beth was unlikely to be in. It was one o’clock in the afternoon – Beth would be at work, not due back for hours yet – and Darcy was in a strange city with nowhere to go.

To her surprise the door opened just as Darcy was thinking of finding a coffee shop and trying to give Beth a call.

 “ _Darcy_?”

 For a moment, Darcy wondered how a stranger knew her name and suffered a terrifying second when she thought perhaps this was Loki in disguise before her brain caught up to her and she recognised Beth’s fiancée, Louise.

 “Beth’s not in, by any chance is she?” Darcy asked, voice cracking with relief.

Louise shook her head wordlessly, opening the door wider and drawing Darcy inside. She was still in hospital scrubs and her hair smelled faintly of disinfectant. She must have only just got off-shift. “Beth won’t be home ‘til nearly seven.” Louise told her, guiding Darcy towards the couch and stationing her there. Darcy sat without protest, watching silently as Beth put the kettle on to boil. Raised in England for most of her childhood, Louise had inherited her father’s firm conviction that there wasn’t an ill in the world that couldn’t be soothed with a cup of tea. Beth always told Darcy it was simultaneously Louise’s most endearing and most frustrating personality trait.

Setting the mugs down on the coffee table before them, Louise turned so she could take both of Darcy’s hands in hers. They had only met a handful on times but Louise had always been surprisingly tactile and Darcy found she didn’t have the energy to object to the familiarity this time. She could hear the medical training creeping into Louise’s tone when she said, “Tell me what happened.”

Swallowing, Darcy held up her left hand. The ring there caught the light and abruptly Darcy burst into tears. Louise immediately gathered her into a hug, letting Darcy sob into her shoulder as she murmured soothing nonsense into her hair. Darcy wished it was Beth and not Louise who was hugging her, feeling immediately guilty and then resentful just the same. She passed into sleep with her face mashed against blue cotton, tears and mucus trailing down her chin.

oOo

Beth was there when Darcy woke again. Louise had left her to sleep on the sofa, blanket pulled down across her shoulders and shoes pried off her feet. Beth was perched on a kitchen chair by Darcy’s head, eyes troubled as she stroked Darcy’s hair back from her face.

“Hey.” She whispered, moving back as Darcy sat up. “Want to tell me what’s going on?” The sky outside the window was losing the battle to dusk and lights were beginning to flick on in neighbouring apartment blocks. Darcy scrubbed a hand across her eyes and winced as jarring pain that crawled through her neck. She must have slept in the most awkward position.

“It’s complicated.” Darcy said. Beth nodded, stepping across Darcy’s knees to take the seat next to her on the sofa. She gestured to the metal wrapped around Darcy’s fourth finger.

“I can see that.” She said. “Louise went out to pick up some things for dinner, so we’ve got time – if you wanted to do this without an audience.”

Darcy nodded gratefully, reaching over to hug Beth abruptly – sighing when she realised that this was something that would never change. Pulling back, Darcy forced herself not to panic as she began to speak.

“You know about the attacks on Manhattan? The alien invasion? The more recent attacks?”

“Well sure,” Beth said. “You’d have had to be have been living under a rock to have missed all that.”

“How much do you know?” Darcy asked.

Beth thought for a moment. “Just what the broadcasts kept saying: alien invasion, we are not alone. And some asshole with a trust-fund and Daddy issues who’s decided to make himself a supervillain. I mean you heard about that right? Guy calls himself ‘Loki’ – like, _seriously_ , Loki. I only heard that once – broadcasters stopped saying it after that, guess even that nutjob realised how stupid it sounded – what? What’s the matter.”

Darcy paused –thought of all her contracts and the non-disclosure agreements and promises and thought _to hell with them anyway_. “He is Loki. Just like that guy, you sometimes see on the T.V. waving his hammer, really is Thor. They’re not soldiers in costume, they’re not trust-fund babies with too much time on their hands. These are men who were once worshiped as gods. Whom _I_ once worshipped as a god.”

Beth opened her mouth – ready to laugh, Darcy thought – but then she seemed to understand that Darcy wasn’t joking. “Oh Jesus Christ.” She whispered, and then when the full reality of the situation hit her: the realisation that Loki was _real,_  wasn’t just a fantasy Darcy had kept up, she looked vaguely sick. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Darcy. He – Loki – oh god.” Darcy watched Beth’s face flutter through a range of different emotions and steadily become paler.

“It’s worse.” Darcy said, fixing her eyes on her lap so she wouldn’t have to see what Beth thought of that. “I – I messed up, Beth. I’ve messed up so bad.” The whole story came pouring out. From the beginning to the end – all the bits Beth didn’t know, the parts Darcy had never chosen to share with her. The time when, at sixteen, drunk on endorphins and hormones and silly with lust Darcy had composed her first Devotional – offering herself in a way she didn’t really understand to a creature she had so badly misunderstood. How ten years later she’d done something even worse – piling accident on top of accident and making everything worse.

Beth listened in soft horror, edging away from Darcy slightly before she caught herself and deliberately scooted back across the couch, pressing up into Darcy’s space.

“I don’t know what to do,” Darcy said eventually. Her hands were wrapped around Beth’s so tight she thought she could hear her friend’s knuckles creaking. “I don’t know what he wants or want he plans to do or if I’ve put you in danger by coming here. I –”

“Stop.” Beth said firmly. “What’s done is done. None of us can change the past, Darcy. What matters is what we do next. Do you want my advice?” Darcy nodded.

 “You need help. Serious help. Not a Chemist and her doctor but serious help – superhero kind of help.”

 “You think I should tell S.H.I.E.L.D?”

 Beth snorted. “I think you need to get on your fucking knees and _beg_.” Darcy pulled away, hurt. Beth reached after her. “I’m not blaming you.” She said. “But you need to sort this out Darcy, and quickly. There’s more at stake than just you and me. This Loki guy tried to rule the world – tried to _destroy_ it. You need to fix this.”

 Darcy nodded. “Yeah, yes. Yes, you’re right.”

Beth hugged her, tight – fingers clutching at the Darcy’s clothes, slightly desperate. “I’m sorry I can’t do anything for you.” She said. “But this is so far out of my league Darcy – and to be honest I don’t think I’m made to be a hero.” She pulled back, smiling sadly when Darcy looked her in the eye. “I run, Darcy, I don’t fight – you know that. I can’t be your sidekick on this one.”

It hurt to hear – but in a way, Darcy had known it was coming. She’d known even before she’d set foot in Chicago. Beth had been her best friend for years, Darcy knew what she was and wasn’t capable of. Violence – the thought, the reality – Beth had never been a fighter. Darcy couldn’t ask it of her now.

“Thank you, though.” She said. “For listening.”

“Always.” Beth smiled. “Louise should be home any moment – I’m surprised she’s not back already. Stay for dinner and start fresh in the morning. You can call whoever you need to then and know that I’ll always be here if you need me, Darcy. Always.”

Darcy hugged her again, not breaking away until they heard Louise’s key turn in the lock. Her problem wasn’t solved – far from it – but at least Darcy knew she wasn’t alone – not for tonight, at any rate.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> weak chapter is weak and I apologise for that. This thing went through so many re-writes and the end product is, I'm afirad, essentially filler. More action will happen in the next chapter when we join the Avengers in New York but as it stands this chapter is a little thin on the ground. Sorry. Next update won't be until after June 11th and I've already taken too much time out of revision to write this one and now really can afford to take no more. So writing will commence again mid june. Please and Thank You for your patience.


	4. Act IV: Defamation

_Guilt really should be left behind_

_in that other, now alien worldview_

_where the stern old man sits enthroned_

_on high, gazing down serene and unseeing_

_with disapproval crumpling his brow._

_He needs guilt to make his children obey -_

_that and fear, as all tyrants eventually learn._

 

_You, by contrast, have taught me that guilt_

_is an utter waste of time and feeling._

_There is only the need to do or not to do,_

_and when we feel the stinging recoil of regret_

_(which is not the same as guilt)_

_it's only to remind us to do better, make right,_

_not make the same dumb mistakes again._

_You have taught me so much_

_and I have given back so little._

  _~ **Devotional**_ **, Elizabeth Vongvisith**

Darcy slumped in the hardback chair which had been left for her. The only furniture in the room, it was straight-backed and too hard, pressing against her spine and digging in to the meat of her thighs. Darcy was hungry, dirty and tired. By her estimation she had been S.H.I.E.L.D’s ‘guest’ for nearly three days. Some part of her (some small, _stupid_ part) had thought that speaking to Jane would be the last hurdle – that from then on S.H.I.E.L.D would swoop in and pluck the entire mess from her lap, pat her on the head and send her back to her desk and her files and her job. She’d thought that D.C. would open the doors to salvation and instead she’d been dragged away in handcuffs and locked in a ground-base.

Her stomach growled. Darcy gritted her teeth. Her jaw throbbed as the bruising along her cheek and neck made itself known. She shouldn’t have fought. Her panic had made her look guilty. She should have been docile and sad – the perfect female victim. Instead she’d clawed and screamed at the thought of being trapped, jammed the toe of her shoe into an agent’s knee and cracked her skull against another one’s nose. Jane’s screams had added to her terror and the only thing Darcy knew was that she had to stay _free._ All she’d received for her troubles was a stun-gun and a headache.

Jane had raised hell when S.H.I.E.L.D dragged Darcy away. She’d yelled, fought against the agents holding her back, clutching at the one of Darcy’s hands that she could reach. There had been something strangely maternal about the fear in Jane’s eyes – something Darcy had never seen on her own mother’s face. It was comforting – in its own way. Hopefully Jane had done the sensible thing and called Thor the moment she could. The god of thunder might have allied himself with S.H.I.E.L.D but Darcy knew that if Jane lost so much as one hair from her head, Thor would tear Fury limb from limb.

S.H.I.E.L.D seemed to know it too. From the questions Fury had been asking, Darcy knew he only had half of the story. Either Jane hadn’t been questioned, or no one had wanted to risk a more ‘rigorous’ interrogation. No one had asked about her childhood, and Darcy was rather hoping to keep it that way.  Since she’d arrived, Director Fury had been her near-constant companion. _Where was Loki? What was he planning? How did he escape Asgard?_ The same questions over and over again until the words bled through Darcy’s ears and her voice was hoarse from explaining herself. _She didn’t know, she didn’t know, she didn’t know._

For now Darcy was left alone. The room was cold and white and bare. Her legs were numb and her wrists raw from the handcuffs tying her to the chair. Her shoulders ached and her left side hurt when she breathed too deeply. Darcy kept one eye on the door, caught in nervous tension – waiting for the moment when Fury would storm back into the room and the interrogation would begin all over again. She was hungry and her clothes were beginning to smell. Her mind wandered and Darcy thought of sun-soaked summers sleeping in a tree-house she had outgrown and giggling as the moon rose and set. Bizarrely, the thing she remembered most about those days was the kiwi-scented chap-stick she and Kath had shared until Beth had confiscated it. She wondered if Beth was okay, or if Men in Black were knocking down her door – demanding to know all about Darcy’s spontaneous visit to Chicago.

The door smashed open, cracking against the wall as it did so. Darcy braced herself for another round. She frowned when no one entered the room, but her head snapped up as she heard Thor’s voice in the hallway.

“I wish you no harm, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Stand aside.”

There was the murmur of a second voice and then the snap of expensive shoes against polished floors. A Louboutin-encrusted foot slid through the doorway, followed by an elegant woman clutching a phone and a briefcase. Darcy understood immediately why Jane had once described Virginia Potts as being “both efficient and terrifying”.

“Ms. Lewis? If you could please come with me? You’re to be transferred to Asgardian custody pending further investigation of this incident.” Darcy paled before she caught the gleam in Pepper’s eye. Swiftly, Ms. Potts unlocked the handcuffs from Darcy’s wrists, allowing her to stand. Darcy nearly fell as blood rushed back into her limbs, leaving her dizzy and sore.

Thor, having obviously tired with his debate, squeezed into the room, head ducked to avoid the doorframe. His embrace lifted Darcy clean off her feet. Behind them, Pepper quietly closed the door to outsiders.

“Darcy.” He said, setting her back down. “I am sorry it has taken so long to reach you. Midgardian politics are cumbersome. They would not simply grant me an audience with your President. I was forced to wait. I fear I have done you great wrong by leaving you here, undefended.” His hand tipped her chin towards the light and Darcy heard Ms. Potts hiss in sympathy.

Tension was coiling in Thor’s arms. “Who did this? As a friend of my beloved Jane’s you are under my protection. I would have satisfaction from whomsoever dared to harm you in such a way.”

Darcy shook her head. “I don’t know how it was. Can we just get out of here please?”

Thor looked ready to object – determined to deliver justice on Darcy’s behalf – but Pepper smoothly injected herself into the conversation.

“I think what Ms. Lewis needs most right now is food and rest. And perhaps a visit to a doctor?”

Darcy nodded, grateful. She wanted to be gone. She wanted to sleep and not keep one eye open. She wanted to turn back the clock and shake her teenage self but she’d settle for two out of three.

Thor was frowning but he silently agreed. He led Darcy through the compound, escorting her by the elbow for all the world as if they were entering a ball. Ms. Potts tapped along behind, phone pressed to her ear as she informed someone of their imminent arrival.

As they stepped outside, Darcy recognised the bush-scrub and sandy dirt of the New Mexico desert. The sun was just beginning to set, bleeding across the summer-blue sky in streams. Thor handed her up into a sleek jet, where a smiling attendant was waiting with a tray of drinks. The pilot had soft words with Pepper as Thor settled himself beside Darcy, gingerly placing a StarkPhone on the table before them. He seemed afraid to crack the device if he held it too securely.

“I had thought you might like to call Jane.” He said. “I know she would be relieved to hear from you.”

Darcy swallowed. “Is she all right?”

“She is well.” Thor hesitated. “If you would prefer to rest she is waiting in New York. You need not speak to her now.”

Darcy shook her head. “No.” She said, reaching for the phone. “No, I want to speak to her.”

Pepper took seat opposite, just as Darcy lifted the phone to her ear. Darcy made a vague gesture, asking whether she would need to turn the phone off before they flew but Pepper shook her head. She seemed to have some sort of silent conversation with Thor but Darcy ignored them. There was a click and then the sound of Jane’s soft breathing over the line.

“Thor?”

“Guess again.”

“ _Darcy_.”

Darcy burst into tears. Jane sounded so relieved, so happy to hear her voice and all of a sudden it was like a dam was breaking. Darcy sobbed helplessly, scared and tired and heartsick as Jane whispered soothing nonsense into her ear. Thor and Pepper tried to give her as much privacy as they could whilst Darcy slowly got herself under control. She was still hiccupping as the plane began its taxi down the airstrip.

Darcy turned towards the window, watching as the desert fell away beneath them and cloud began to whip past the wing of the plane. Jane was making promises for feel-good movies and crappy food the moment Darcy landed.

“You forgot the PopTarts.” Darcy told her, smiling when she heard Jane giggle.

“Smores flavoured,” Jane promised, “and I’ll even spring for hot chocolate.”

“Thank you.” Darcy whispered.

“Any time.”

Darcy felt the tears clog her throat again and had to take a deep, steadying breath to hold them at bay. “Did you want to talk to Thor before I ring off?”

“Please.”

Darcy handed the phone across and curled into the corner. The hum of the plane vibrated through her chest, rocking her into an uneasy sleep. She dreamt of flashing lights and two eyes gleaming in the darkness.

oOo

Darcy was tired and dazed by the time she we ushered from the lift and into the lobby of _Tony Stark’s_ penthouse. The walls gleamed with tech and Pepper immediately disappeared through one of the far doors, making arrangements for Darcy’s room to be made ready. Darcy huddled in the middle of the room, arms wrapped round her waist as Thor stood guard beside her. Her dreams had been dark and twisted; Darcy’s sleep had been anything but restful. There was a fine tremor building in her hands. Her knees gave way just as the lift dinged to announce a new arrival.

Thor caught her before she hit the floor and as her eyes rolled back into her head she heard Jane’s voice calling for a first aid kit.

oOo

Jane tucked a strand of hair behind Darcy’s ear, taking the chance to take her temperature with the back of her hand. A noise from behind her signalled Thor’s arrival.

“Is she well?”

Jane turned. “There’s no fever but she looks as though she hasn’t slept in days.” Light from the open doorway winked against the metal wrapped around Darcy’s finger. “That ring won’t come off, either. Tony suggested using a laser.”

 “It would be ineffective.” Thor said. “In Asgard, such rings cannot be removed without _both_ parties’ consent.”

Jane stood, allowing Thor to claim her seat, before she resettled herself upon his lap. The weight of his hand against her back was warm and comforting. “There’s nothing that can be done.”

 “I have never been good with magic – that skill forever lay with Loki. I have consulted with my father, but to all intents and purposes Darcy consented. She had laid a precedent – enough that ignorance in the moment would be outweighed. By all our laws the marriage is legal and binding. Loki is entitled to his wife.”

“He’s _entitled?_ ” Jane hissed.

Thor held up a hand. “As much as Darcy is entitled to her husband.”

“But she doesn’t _want_ a husband. She wants nothing to do with him. We have to do _something_.”

“There is nothing that can be done. Darcy might yet attempt to reason with my brother. But if he feels slighted, he is liable to prolong her suffering in the hopes of masking his own.” He pressed a kiss to her hair. “Take comfort, Jane. Of all the spells Darcy might have chosen, she is fortunate to have selected the only one in written record which places god and disciple as equals to one another. As much of a hold as my brother has on Darcy, so she has an equal hold on him. She must simply learn to wield it.”

 Jane sighed. “She’s so young. She was just trying to do the right thing.”

 “I know. But she is strong. This will not be her defeat.”

 Darcy twitched and whimpered in her sleep, brow creasing as nightmares claimed her again. Jane worried that she was sleeping so deeply. They had carried her from the lounge to the med bay and then again to bed and Darcy had stayed asleep. Bruce wasn’t concerned – citing exhaustion and dehydration – but Jane couldn’t stop looking at the bruise splashed across Darcy’s face or its twin curling across her ribcage.

There was a knock and Bruce stuck his head into the room. “Fury’s here, demanding Darcy be returned to S.H.I.E.L.D’s custody. Tony’s gone to meet him,” he hurried to add when Jane pushed to her feet in anger, “there’s no way we’re letting her out of our sight. We can guard against Loki if he comes – we’ve already seen what he does to S.H.I.E.L.D bases.”

 “I will join our friend.” Thor said. “Never fear, Jane. We shall keep Darcy safe.”

 He strode from the room, taking Bruce with him, leaving Jane in the quiet dark again. When she looked down, Darcy’s eyes were open – unfocused and staring.

 “Jane?”

 “I’m here.”

 Darcy shuddered, burrowing down into the blankets as if seized by sudden cold.

 “Darcy?” Jane prompted, but Darcy had slipped back into sleep, hands clenched into fists. Tugging a spare blanket over her knees, Jane began to hum the lullaby her mother used to sing. It had always soothed Jane as a child – perhaps it would work for Darcy.

 oOo

 Darcy woke alone. There were voices, soft and muffled, just outside the door but her main attention was on the sandwich which had been left for her on the nightstand – along with a painkiller and a glass of milk. Darcy wolfed the meal down, fingers slipping on the condensation beading the glass. Whoever had brought the food must have only just left.

Pushing back the covers, Darcy wiggled out of the bed, casting about for clothing or some sort of dressing gown. A towel would do. She didn’t much fancy wandering about in nothing but her underwear. In the end she settled for the sheet. Dragging it from the bed, Darcy improvised a toga, shuffling across the dim room in search of the light switch. She missed the switch but found the bathroom, gladly swapping sheet for steaming water. There was shampoo and soap and water so hot it turned her skin pink. Darcy sank into the spray, scrubbing days’ worth of sweat and grease from her hair. She stayed until the water started to cool and her fingers were wrinkled and pale. Someone, presumably Jane, had left a pile of clothes perched on the bed – Darcy recognised them as coming from the suitcase she had left behind when S.H.I.E.L.D. had dragged her away.

By the time she stepped out of her room, Darcy felt – if not _happy_ – then certainly calmer than she had felt previously. The hallways were warm in a way Darcy instinctively knew meant that the tower was full of people. Her first thought was to find Jane – or failing that a pot of coffee – but with no idea as to where she was in relation to either than those Darcy opted simply to turn left and start walking. Two flights of stairs and a mirrored corridor later she was standing in the same living room in which she had fainted. Iron Man, himself, was mixing a drink at the wet bar. Darcy blinked owlishly at him and then again when he slid a shot of whiskey in her direction.

“You look like you need it, kid.”

“Darcy.”

“Sure. Now, drink.”

Ill advised as it might have been, Darcy downed the alcohol in one gulp, coughing as it burned its way into her stomach.

“Another?” Tony offered.

Darcy nodded, still coughing. “Hit me.” She slid onto one of the stools arrayed before the bar, taking the her refilled glass with as much gusto as she had drunk the first. Stark grinned at her.

“Sorority, right?”

“Amnesty International.” Her wit was awarded with another drink. She frowned.

Tony tucked the bottle away again. “Drink that and then we’ll see about feeding you. Cap’ll be wanting to ask you some questions about your friend.”

Darcy glared and pushed the whiskey away. “He’s not my friend.”

“Husband then.”

Darcy’s feelings of calm and composure evaporated. Her heart squeezed as she glanced down at her left hand. For a moment, just a moment, she’d forgotten what she was wearing. She swayed dangerously on her bar stool.

“Kid, hey – stay with me. Breathe. Just breathe.”

Darcy sucked in great lungfuls of air, gripping tightly to the polished surface of the bar until the grey receded from the edges of her vision. Tony had a hold on both her biceps, keeping her upright. 

“You okay?”

Darcy swore at him violently – kept swearing until she had run out of breath and tears were leaking down her cheeks. She was scared and angry and she wanted to hit him. But Tony was looking at her like maybe, just _maybe_ , he knew what if felt like to worry that you were going to wake up one morning to find you’d died and he was sorry. Darcy wanted to curl into herself and wish the world away. She pushed the thought away. Darcy Lewis was not some Disney princess waiting to be rescued and whisked away. She was going to fight, damn it. This was her life – she wasn’t letting go that easily. Straightening up, Darcy pulled her shoulders back and held her chin up high. Screw the world. She was stronger than this shit.

“Where’s Thor?” She demanded.

Stark, kept a hold on her for a moment longer, before nodding and letting go. Apparently satisfied that she wasn’t going to have a meltdown in his living room, he began clearing away her shot glass.

“JARVIS, where’s our resident deity?”

Darcy jumped as a cultred British voice appeared to answer from the ether. “Mr. Odinson is currently engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Captain Rogers, sir. You will find them on the fourth floor training room.”

Tony was eyeing her strangely. “No one introduced you to JARVIS, huh?”

“Not as such, no.”

Tony stared at the ceiling. “Want to tell me what that’s all about, buddy?”

“I thought perhaps Ms. Lewis had received enough surprises for the time being, Sir. I didn’t wish to alarm her.”

Tony was nodding as if this made sense, but Darcy was still casting about – trying to see if she could spot a set of speakers or even a control hub somewhere. Tony gestured for her to follow, winding his way through various corridors and down a flight of stairs.

“No one ever mentioned to you that Avengers’ Tower was governed by my A.I.?” He asked.

“Well, yeah.” Darcy admitted. “But the A.I.’s in L.A. were nowhere near as advanced. Their responses were limited at best.”

“Duh. JARVIS is top-of-the-line. None better. S.H.I.E.L.D are decades from creating anything even remotely as smart as JARVIS here.”

“Thank you, Sir.” Came the reply. Darcy cast about furtively, still trying to spot the speakers.

They arrived in the training room just in time to see Mjolnir come crashing down on Captain America’s shield. Darcy felt the aftershocks in her bones as the force rippled out across the room.

Both combatants were breathing heavily and pouring sweat. Thor swung Mjolnir in idle circles, dragging a forearm across his forehead. Steve was the one to catch sight of their visitors, nodding his head to direct Thor’s attention. Tony was already halfway across the room, hands running across Steve’s shield, mouth running as he tried to wrangle consent for experimentation and improvement from America’s hero.

Darcy hovered at the edge of the training mats as Thor made his way over to her.

“Jane is currently resting.” He told her. “She sat with you all night.” Darcy nodded, touched. “If you are well, we should speak of Loki. I doubt he will leave you in peace for long.”

“If we’re going to have this conversation, I need to be baking. Let’s talk in the kitchen.”

oOo

Darcy banged cupboards and pulled open draws as Thor settled his weight at the kitchen table. It was a habit she had learnt from Beth’s mother: the kitchen was the heart of the home – it was the only sensible place to hold difficult conversations.

“Twice before, in his lifetime, has my brother taken a wife. You would be the third.”

Darcy poured sugar into a bowl, weighing her reply. “Were they both goddesses?”

Thor shook his head. “No. Angrboda was of Jotunheim – Loki was forever one to push the limits of society – and Sigyn was mortal.” The slight pause before ‘mortal’, told Darcy just what Thor meant.

“She was a Disciple.”

“Yes.”

Darcy reached for a whisk and began to beat the eggs with vigour. “Did you ever marry a Disciple?”

Thor tensed. “It was never my way.”

“Why not?” Darcy asked. “If it gives you that much extra power?” Thor shifted uncomfortably.  Darcy’s eyes widened. “It’s the equivalent of marrying the help, isn’t it?” Another wince.

“More like marrying one’s slave.” Shame was crawling across Thor’s face. “It was not uncommon to lie with one’s followers – even to give a woman a home and a living that she might raise your sons to be strong warriors. Some women crafted spells specifically to ensure such an arrangement, but marriage? Nay, that was never dreamt of ‘til Sigyn. Loki wrote that spell himself – that all of Asgard might be forced to welcome her as the bride of Odin’s son.”

“And was she?” Darcy wanted to know.

“My father forbid her presence.” Thor said. “To bring a mortal to our realms – one who had passed no test of courage or trial of skill – has never been done. My brother was forced to live in Midgard until Sigyn passed into eternal sleep.”

“How did they meet,” Darcy asked, “if she was mortal?”

Thor sighed. “Sigyn had been one of Loki’s most devout followers in the early days of his power. She was beautiful – more so than many women of Asgard – and the chief of his priestesses. He courted her affection when he was still an unblooded boy. Lured, I think, by the promise of the power her worship would bring him. The strength of his sorcery is owed almost entirely to her. He used to boast of the prayers he could pull from her lips – the spells he could wreath with her words alone.”

Darcy felt lead pool in the pit of her stomach. “He makes spells from prayers.”

“Aye, it was ever his favourite trick. Her spells let him steal between the worlds and climb down to the roots of Ydrassil.”

The air left Darcy’s lungs in a rush. The room was hot and far too small. Why was there no air?

Thor seemed to understand the cause of her distress. “Loki was strong in magic long before you walked this earth.” He told her. “No doubt, already on his way to madness. You must not blame yourself.”

Darcy put the bag of flour down with a thump and braced herself against the counter. “Who else _is there_ to blame? “ Darcy demanded. “ _I_ chose to worship Loki, _I_ wrote the prayers. This is _my_ fault.

Thor laid a comforting hand on her shoulder; Darcy hadn’t even heard him stand up. “Jane has told me all you said, Darcy. You were a _child_ and the truth about our nature had been lost to time. You thought us myths.”

“That’s not an excuse.” Darcy whispered.

“Self-recrimination will win you no battles.” Thor said. “If you wish to free yourself of my brother’s influence then you must act. Not simply linger in the past.”

The words stung. Darcy wondered if Thor had ever truly known fear, known what it meant to be a puppet on someone else’s string. “So what now?”

“The Man of Iron has erected shields around this place that not even Loki’s magic should be able to penetrate. When the Widow and the Hawk are returned to us we shall be strong again but ‘til that day I will teach you what I know of sorcery, that you may begin to understand Loki’s ways.”

Darcy nodded, thinking. S.H.I.E.L.D had obviously recalled Romanov and Barton – no doubt to test their loyalty – and Tony had bought her a few days protection. The Avengers had prepared the battleground; it was up to her to learn to fight.

“Tell me everything you know and fast. I need to learn how to beat your brother at his own game.” She swept her half-assed baking into the bin, slamming the lid shut as she dumped her utensils in the sink.

Darcy Lewis had graduated with Honours – Political Science was _her_ game. Time to put it to use.

oOo

Contrary to her own assessment, Thor has insisted that their most pressing concern was the procuring of a ring for Loki. Captain America had assumed baby-sitting duty, escorting Darcy through New York’s high-end jewellers, as Pepper made suggestions for custom designs with an array of gemstones. Darcy had thought simply to buy the first ring she could find – something gold and plain. The type that could be purchased at any Vegas chapel for hasty soon-to-weds. Time and again she had pointed at a random selection, only to find her gut pulling her in another direction. Clerk after clerk prepared to ring up her sale but at the last minute Darcy always lost her nerve. It was as though the corners of her mind were seeking something specific, whilst her consciousness merely wanted the ordeal to be over and finished. The process seemed nearly endless. Darcy’s mind seemed divorced from her actions – as though she were watching through someone else’s eyes. Most of her thoughts were given over to examining what information Thor had been able to provide. Supposedly, she had the potential to manipulate Loki as much as he might try to manipulate her. The only difference was in the years of experience they were each bringing to the table. Ignoring the voice which sounded suspiciously like Beth in her head, Darcy told her conscience to take a vacation. Thor still seemed to mourn for his brother – to hold out hope that some small good left in his soul would mean his redemption. In a moment of blinding clarity, Darcy could see the path to destroying Loki. To twisting him inside and out more thoroughly than Odin or Thor or all of Asgard had ever managed previously. Darcy knew she could leave him a wreck – a shadow of his former self – an in that moment he could be defeated. Earth would be safe – _Darcy_ would be safe – and it would all be over. Serenity settled over her mind like a veil. The turmoil she had felt so soon after waking dissolved into a memory. Darcy had her plan and her purpose; her parents had told her all she needed to know about divorcing her emotions. Darcy knew she could win. She also knew what she would lose.

Cutting off the search, Darcy hurried them back to Avengers’ Tower. She shanghaied Tony into a custom-job; sunset had seen the production of a brushed titanium ring. Satisfaction swelled in Darcy’s chest. The ring was beautiful. Plain, but grand in the way of all Tony’s designs. It was a far cry from what Darcy had imagined herself purchasing but it felt right. Darcy spun the metal in her hand, watching the light twist and twist as the ring twirled across her palm. Handing it back to Tony, she asked for an inscription to be added. Tony raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything, simply etching the word on the inside rim.

Thor gazed at her uneasily and Jane looked slightly sick. Darcy ignored them. For the first time since she had fled Los Angeles, she felt whole. The calm – the serentity which had been missing from the past days – welled inside her. It was like coming home. Thor caught her by the elbow as she made to leave the room.

“Be careful, Darcy. Our prayers are not like yours – they take many forms – and mortals have been known to find the words addictive.”

Darcy smiled. “I’m fine.” She promised. “You said we’ve been put on equal footing. I intend to make the most of it.” She pulled out of Thor’s grasp, softly. “I know what I’m doing.” She titled her chin in smug confidence. Thor stared at her a moment longer before sighing. He stepped back, tucking an arm around Jane.

“Be safe, Darcy.”

“Always am.” Darcy replied. She made her way back to her room, spinning the ring idly between her fingers. The metal was warm from her skin, smooth to the touch and curved at the rim. It was exquisite craftsmanship. She would have to remember to thank Tony later.

Closing the door behind her, Darcy settled herself at the head of the bed. Tucking her feet into a tailor’s seat, she took a steadying breath.  “I’ve no illusions about these shields keeping you out.” She told the ceiling. “Why don’t you stop playing?”

A laugh trickled from the ether and Loki materialised at the foot of the bed.

“I had intended to give you one more day.” He said. “But if you are _so_ eager, I suppose I can oblige.”

Darcy smirked and patted the mattress in front of her. Loki stared at it blankly. “Have a seat.” Darcy prompted. Loki looked as though he’d sucked on a lemon but he obeyed, sprawling in a languid arc across the duvet. “Well?” He demanded.

Darcy held out the ring between thumb and forefinger, lips curving in a smirk as Loki tracked the motion like a hawk. She pulled his hand into her lap, slipping the ring onto his finger and then finishing the gesture with a kiss – pressing her lips to his palm as she curled his fingers back into a fist.

Loki jaw was slack with shock. Darcy sat, waiting patiently, as Loki’s mind churned. His gaze burned into hers but Darcy was careful to keep her smile pleasant and her eyes clear. She’d been half expecting it when Loki barrelled towards her, pressing his lips to hers in a fervent kiss. He tried to push her back against the mattress, but Darcy held her ground, bracing against Loki’s greater weight.

The door crashed open, and Loki jerked away with a snarl. Darcy caught sight of Thor, armed and towering with rage, framed in the doorway. Darcy could hear the sounds on panic in the hallways and the wail of a siren in the distance. Darcy wrapped a hand around Loki’s wrist, just as Thor threw Mjolnir at Loki. The world cracked and shifted, and then Darcy was falling through a darkness that squeezed the breath from her lungs and stole her voice. Horrors spun before her eyes and the only thing she could feel were the bones of Loki’s wrists, pinched between her fingers. In the distance, she thought she could hear Thor roar her name.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have read through this a hundred times but no doubt I have missed a dozen typos. I will check through again after some sleep with fresh eyes. Sorry for the time it's taken to update. Hopefully it's worth that wait :D


	5. Act V: Quandry

_Write me a poem, you said,  
_

_stretching out smoothly near me, catlike,  
_

_all taut, tensed skin, your voice drifting  
_

_in and out of my awareness like hot wind;  
_

_I breathed you in, poisoning myself with you.  
_

_At the time, it sounded so easy to write you a poem.  
_

_I recklessly promised I would.  
_

_~ **By Request**_ **, Elizabeth Vongvisith**

Thor’s howl of fury shook the tower. Jane came running, proximity alarm wailing in her ears. Thor was raining curses on his brother’s head as Jane slipped into Darcy’s room. It was quiet, practically untouched. Even the hole Mjolnir had punched through the wall behind the bed seemed oddly settled. As if the room had reformed itself to embrace all chaos and all destruction, now that its inhabitant was gone. The only sign that Darcy had ever been there, at all, was a slight mussing of the bed – as if she had sat down for a moment and then forgotten to smooth the sheets upon standing. Behind her, Stark was holding a rapid and nigh unintelligible conversation with JARVIS. Jane wandered idly to the bathroom. She picked across newly opened bottles of shampoo and the touch-damp towel still hanging on the rack. If life were a mystery novel this would be the moment when she discovered some well-concealed clue: a hint or possibly a message. Jane upended the conditioner and read the ingredients to herself. No clue there.

Quiet footfalls announced the arrival of Dr. Banner. Jane turned, cradling the conditioner against her abdomen as thought it were a treasured possession – a final token of affection.

“Thor says Loki came, took Darcy.” Bruce said. “Tony’s currently trying to triangulate their whereabouts. Not that he’s likely to have much luck.”

Jane nodded. She had supposed as much. “Did he take her?” She asked, “Or did Darcy choose to leave?”

 Bruce was silent. He hadn’t witnessed the engraving of the ring, but he surely would have heard of it. “People are never so simple as black and white.” Bruce said eventually. “Not in their beliefs, in their words, least of all in their motivations. We shouldn’t assume this is a case of your friend choosing loyalty for one and betrayal for another. We all have end-games here. Why can’t she?”

“I think part of her might love him.” Jane confessed. “She told me once that she loves her parents – loved them through every slap and every insult. Not a lot – not as much as she resents them. But instinctively, still, she loves them.”

“Did she ever confront her parents?” Bruce asked. Jane shrugged; she didn’t know. “Then maybe Loki’s her surrogate. She can’t take her anger out on them – there’s too much at stake. But Loki? Perhaps part of her considers _him_ fair game. He’s our enemy, he’s a villain. We all have an urge to hurt those who hurt us. Conscience and the law keep us in check. But Loki is outside those realms. We all long for that kind of catharsis. Maybe Darcy’s just taking her chance.”

Jane eyed Banner warily. “We all long to hurt someone with impunity?”

Banner’s lips twisted. He might have been trying for a smirk. “Well, when I say we –”

The sound of Mjolnir crashing into concrete cut Bruce off mid-sentence. Jane pushed him aside, stepping back into the bedroom to see Thor seething, Mjolnir embedded in the floor by Tony’s feet. It was clear he had heard the entire conversation.

“It is not for Darcy to exact vengeance upon my brother’s head. His life belongs to Asgard. And only there may justice be administered.”

“Yeah,” Bruce snorted, “because your cells have done such a good job of holding him, so far.”

“In the past we have been lenient. This time will not be so.”

Tony was flipping a screwdriver between his fingers. As Bruce geared up for another parry, he stepped between them. Looking at Jane, he pointed the screwdriver in her direction.

“You’ve known her longest. Will she kill him? Fuck him? Become his minion? What?”

Jane shook her head. “None of the above. All of them. I only just found out about her – _relationship,_ if you can call it that. I don’t know what Loki means to her, deep down.”

Then we’re flying blind.” Tony decided. “And there’s no point debating these types of hypotheticals back and forth. It won’t get us anywhere. We need two plans: one for if she turns on us, one for if she turns on him.” He directed his attention to the air. “JARVIS, call the others to the War Room. We need to strategise. And ready the files on the anti-magic weaponry – let’s see what we’ve got.”

“Very good, Sir.”

Tony strode from the room, declining Thor the opportunity to argue and trusting that anyone with sense would follow him. Bruce went, giving Thor a wide birth as he levered Mjolnir out of the ground.

Jane wrapped a hand around Thor’s bicep, tugging until he turned his full attention toward her. “Promise me, you won’t hurt Darcy. No matter what happens.” Thor frowned. “ _Promise me._ ” Jane demanded.

“I swear.” Thor said at last, bending to press a kiss against her forehead.

Jane could hear the reluctance in his voice. Thor’s relationship with Loki may have been strained at best, but less than a decade of hostility was little weight against millennia of goodwill. Were Loki to die, Thor would seek vengeance – alliance with Midgard be damned. An oath was the only thing that might hold him in check, outside of a parental decree. Jane only hoped that Darcy knew what she was doing. If Odin weighed in on this debacle all bets were off.

oOo

Darcy landed with a thump, pitching forward as her knees buckled. Loki stood serenely to one side, clothes settling in an unfelt breeze. He reached down a hand to help Darcy to her feet. His skin was cool, finger-pads rough with calluses where they pressed against her palm.

Standing made Darcy’s head spin. Her brain felt as though it were dripping out through her ears; the world danced a volta across her eyeballs.

“The transition can be difficult for those unaccustomed to the process.” Loki said. “You will feel well, shortly.”

Darcy flapped a hand in acknowledgement. Nodding seemed inadvisable.

Feeling the world regain some stability, Darcy chanced a look around. The world was a ball of obsidian. Smooth and black – arching overhead and streaming underfoot – Darcy had the strangest sensation of being trapped inside a very large marble.

“Where are we?”

Loki shrugged, moving away towards a table which appeared to spring from the air. As Darcy watched, chairs and tableware materialised to accompany it. Darcy had received plenty of exposure to science over the years, but this defied any of the laws of physics she knew.  

She noted that Loki seemed inordinately fascinated with his ring. Even as he draped himself languorously across one of the chairs, he tilted his wrist left and right – smiling every time the light rippled across the metal. Distracted by that thought, Darcy cast about for a light source. There was none that she could see, but the room (if it could be called that) was as bright and warm as if lit by a hundred candelabras. Darcy edged slowly away, wary lest Loki lash out suddenly. But he appeared content to let her explore. Darcy ran her hand across the glossy walls; tapping them with a fingernail to hear them ring like glass. The stone hummed beneath her touch.

She took her time exploring, using Loki’s disinterest to collect her thoughts. Everything depended upon her ability to keep her wits about her. The best lie was at least partially true. Darcy couldn’t afford to forget that.

She turned back when the smell of cooking meat reached her nostrils. Loki seemed to have perfected the trick of conjuring something from nothing. The table was now littered with food and drink. The entire centre third was given over to a giant roast boar, apple trapped between its teeth. Loki beckoned her toward the table, pushing a goblet brimming with sweet wine in her direction. Darcy plucked it from the table, tongue wetting her lips as she caught the scent of honey and flowers rising from the wine. Loki raised his own goblet in a toast, eyes never leaving Darcy’s face as he began to drink.

Darcy followed suit, teeth clicking against the rim. The contenders were in position, the field was set. Let the games begin.

oOo

New York was a far cry from New Mexico, but standing on the roof of the tower, feeling the wind on her face, Jane felt just that slightest bit calmer. Footsteps clicked on the roof behind her and Jane caught a flesh of red hair and black leather at the edge of her vision. The Black Widow was terrifying, but Jane found there was also a sort of solidarity between them: two women in a world of men. Jane’s fingers beat a random tattoo as Romanov braced her elbows on the roof edge beside her. Jane could feel the other woman’s gaze alight upon the unopened pack of cigarettes between them. Jane didn’t smoke. She’d bought the pack on impulse, feet leading her to the corner store whilst the others stormed and argued in the War Room. Darcy had taken to bumming cigarettes from strangers in Puente Antiguo. Tipsy, she would let the cigarette dangle from her lips, humming show tunes, smoke curling from her nostrils. Dragon-time, she called it – rubbed raw with cynicism and self-deprecation. Jane had hated the stench but she would prop Darcy up and listen to her sing. In the morning, Darcy would bundle their clothes into the laundry and groan her way through Erik’s lecture on lung disease and bad habits. But that was years ago, and to the best of her knowledge Darcy hadn’t smoked since she left New Mexico.

Natasha tapped a nail against the pack, cellophane wrapping crackling at the touch. “We all make mistakes when we’re younger.” She said. “But I think you can trust your friend to have thought this one through.”

Jane shrugged. Intellectually, she knew Darcy was an adult, but in her heart, she still thought of Darcy as the slightly ditzy intern who refused to talk about her parents and gave a stray dog her sweater because she thought he looked cold.

“Dangerous men are often the most charismatic.” Jane said. “And Darcy –”

“You think she’s impressionable.”

“What? _No_.” Jane said. Then, “Maybe. It’s just – Thor and Loki are more alike than either of them would like to believe. At least to my mind, and –”

“If you could fall for Thor after three days acquaintance, what sort of pull does Loki have on Darcy after more than ten years?”

“I trust Darcy’s judgement.”

Natasha turned so her back was braced against the roof edge. “Then what’s the problem?”

Jane shook her head. “I don’t know.”Anxiety was warring with experience and frustration. Banner’s analysis had burrowed beneath her skin, leaving Darcy bathed in a different light. How many times had Darcy poured out her frustration to Jane, disproportionate to the situation, anger bubbling beneath her skin? How much of that was living in a city as highly strung as LA, working for an organisation as secretive as S.H.I.E.L.D? And how much of that was years upon years of rage, fighting to find a vent?

Natasha’s voice brought her back to the present. “You know what the problem is.”

Jane nodded, wiped a hand across her face. Her cheeks were wet; she was startled to realise she was crying.

oOo

Darcy was swimming in the gaps between the cosmos. Wherever her physical body was, her mind was far removed. Stars spun Sufitic dances across her eyes. She could hear Loki laughing, dripping the honey-thick syllables of his native tongue into her ear. She was naked or, at least, she felt as if she was. The universe was cool against her skin and Darcy shook apart as the Milky Way was born.

_Where are we_?

_Nowhere. Everywhere. This is the beginning._

_Why bring me here?_

There was no answer. Darcy spread her wings and soared across a planet painted grey.

_My Valkyrie_. Loki whispered.  _My revenge_.

Darcy furled her wings and dropped into the centre of the sun. She burned and ice boiled in her veins. Loki screamed in triumph and wrapped her in his arms. They ricocheted across the solar system, tumbled through the stars. Darcy awoke laughing and gasping and high as a kite. Angel-headed hipsters and carbon-paper nights: a full-blown Blake-light tragedy.  

Sensation returned slowly. Darcy’s skin prickled and every breath felt like a new awakening. This was religion; this was rhapsody. Loki was tracing patterns on her skin with nothing but a breeze, fingers brushing through her hair. She blinked. “I’m so sorry.”

“It was many centuries ago.”

Darcy could feel sobs building in her throat. Loki cradled her against his chest and Darcy wept.

She had never known a parent love her as fiercely as Loki loved his children. She knew his pain when they were taken from him; she knew his anger and his fear. Darcy knew how Loki had railed and fought – how he had been punished for objecting to his offspring’s imprisonment: Jörmungandr tossed into the sea, Fenrir locked inside a cage and Hel – the half-dead daughter – banished by Odin and destined to be alone.

It was strange. Darcy was split in two. She lay there, hip pressed against the cool, stone floor – Loki’s fingers in her curls – and knew,  _knew_ , every cruel and horrific thing he had ever done. The violence in the name of Tricks – the pain, the death. But she also knew how fiercely he loved Frigg, how he had bled to keep his elder brother safe and Darcy was confused. Loki was a monster and a father – one the antipathy of the other – and yet Loki was both, complete. Darcy’s head was filled with a thousand thoughts. She knew Loki inside and out. And in the process had forgotten what it meant to be herself. Where Darcy had once known her mind there was now an empty space. A trove stripped of all its gold.

 oOo

“She may yet return. Do not lose hope.”

Jane started; she hadn’t heard Thor come in. “It’s been over a month. Tony can’t find anything, neither can S.H.I.E.L.D. You said yourself that Heimdall lost sight of her moment Loki spirited her away. I just –” She broke off as Agent Hill knocked on the door. Thor turned, half-shielding her from sight, as if simply by virtue of his size he could keep away the evils of the world. Hill simply stepped half a foot sideways to keep Jane in her sight.

 “We’ve had a call from the NYPD.” She said. “They found a body. They need you to come in for an I.D.”

The world span sideways. Dimly, Jane was aware of Thor’s hands reaching out to keep her upright. Of Hill saying something about cars and leaving. Jane could feel the blood roaring in her ears. Numb, she climbed to her feet. _Darcy, Darcy, Darcy._

The journey seemed interminable. Stark was with them, strapped in beside his driver as Thor and Jane shared the back seat. She couldn’t make her brain work fast enough to figure out why he was there. He’d barely known Darcy. Only met her that one time.

“It may not be her.” Thor murmured. “Many times have I been called to name the bodies of fallen warriors, many times have I expected to see a friends face amongst them. It is not always so. She may yet live.”

Jane nodded, too quick, spine crunching as her head snapped. She would have to call Darcy’s friends – especially Beth. Jane had never met the woman, didn’t know what number to call. Maybe Ms. Potts would know? She was good at organising things.

The coroner’s office was grey and bleak and everything crime dramas made it out to be. An orderly, sombre and polite, led them to a cold, white room. Tony stayed outside. Quietly, a doctor drew back a sheet and Jane felt tears leak down her cheeks.

 “It’s not her.” Laughter bubbled, desperate and wrong in such a quiet place. “That’s not Darcy. It’s not.”

 The doctor paused. “You’re sure?”

Jane nodded, shocked and crying and horribly, terribly relieved. “Darcy has a beauty mark, right there.” She pointed. “She usually covered it with make-up but – she had one. This girl doesn’t.”

Thor added his confirmation. “It is not our friend.”

The doctor drew the sheet back over the dead girl’s face. “Thank you. I’ll need you to sign a statement to that affect. Then you can go.”

“I will inform our comrades.” Thor said softly, letting the door swing shut, gently. Someone, somewhere else, was missing a daughter and Jane felt guilty for feeling relieved. She signed her name where the doctor indicated: pen gripped too tightly and ink bleeding into the mulch.

Tony was on the phone when Jane emerged. He waved a hand, indicating where Thor was pacing down the hallway. Jane hurried to catch up, letting Thor sweep her into an embrace. She could feel his heart beating too quickly, tension cording the muscles in his arm.

“Aren’t you happy?” She wanted to know. “It’s not Darcy.”

“I am glad the Lady Darcy was not the woman we saw. But I worry that her location is still not known.”

“I may have an answer to that.” They turned, Tony was walking towards them. “That was Fury; there was just a spike in the detection grid. Two hours north: Catskill Park.”

“Loki?”

“Looks like.”

Jane was already heading for the exit. “We’re going to beat S.H.I.E.L.D. Thor, can you lift us both?”

Stark smirked, lifting a familiar brief case from the car. “I came prepared.”

Thor was airborne, Jane in his arms, before Tony had finished speaking. New York streamed beneath their feet, concrete canyons giving way to smaller towns, forests radiating across the landscape. Jane’s cheeks were numb by the time Thor landed, skin tinged pink by the wind. A rush of air and the sound of propulsion engines shutting down heralded Iron Man’s arrival. He pointed to a stop deeper in the woods. “The spike registered about a mile, that way. The trees are too dense to fly. We’ll have to walk.”

“Lead the way.” Jane ordered.

Leaves crackled underfoot; autumn was beginning to tighten its grip. Jane kept pace with Thor’s longer strides, pushing ahead and trusting Stark to provide directions when necessary. The snap of the undergrowth had three heads turning toward the noise. There was a rustle and Jane felt her heart climb into her throat. A fawn bounded into their path and into the brush. Jane slumped.  

Jane scoured the clearing as the men fanned out into the surrounding woods. Her father had taught her the basics of tracking when she was a child – back in the days when he’d tried to teach her everything he knew, in preparation for the day she would no longer want to learn. She still felt guilty about that, sometimes. By the time she was nine, the hands-on knowledge of a Park Ranger held no interest for her. Her father had taken a back seat to the wonders of the universe. He’d understood – never been anything but supportive – cheered until his throat was raw when she graduated. But, there were times, like now, when Jane felt her stomach curl at the memory of a little girl who’d thought her father was boring.

She was on her hands and knees in the cracking leaves when Thor returned. Tony was close behind him, visor up and shaking his head.

“We’ve got nothing.” He told her. “Whatever caused the spike’s long gone by now – maybe it was just a malfunction.”

“I don’t think so.” Jane said. Carefully, she pulled away the branches of a sprawling bush, lifting them back until the damp earth beneath the leaves was revealed. There, half-hidden in shadow was a silver ball.

Thor reached past her and lifted it into his palm. The ball spun and rocked as if weighted somehow, cracking the light that bounced across its surface. The dazzle hurt to look at; Tony flipped his visor down in protest.

“What the hell is that thing?”

Thor didn’t say anything, simply prodded the ball with one thick finger. It shrieked, startling a flock of birds into flight, and began spinning madly on Thor’s palm. Quickly, Thor clapped it between both hands to hold it still.

“This is of Loki’s making.” He told them. “I cannot, yet, divine its purpose. I must return to Asgard – my father will know for what it was designed.” He stood, hands still wrapped firmly around the ball. “Return to our companions. If this is some sort of scout, it is possible Loki plans to encroach upon the city’s boarders yet again.” Thor looked apologetically at Jane. “I am sorry I cannot bring you with me. I had hoped, that the next time I returned to Asgard I would bring you with me, but you will be needed here. If my brother returns, you are the only one who can speak to Loki as one of Darcy’s kin. If he has even an ounce of honour left to him, he will be obliged to answer your questions.”

Jane nodded, throat tight at the mention of Darcy’s name. She backed up, giving Thor room as clouds began to gather over head. Tony tugged her close, and leapt into the air. Jane watched over his shoulder as the Bifrost split the sky in a cavalcade of light.

oOo

Six weeks, and everything could change. The concrete canyons of New York were grey and cold, the sky the same dirty slate as the sidewalk. Everywhere, people burrowed further into their coats, wrapped scarves around their necks and ducked gratefully through doorways and into their homes.

Darcy huddled down into her cloak; the weather had turned chill in the time she’d been away.

Loki melted from the shadows. “What will you tell them?”

Darcy shrugged. “I’ll think of something.”

“Will you indeed?”

“You doubt me?”

Loki laughed. “Never. You are the most exquisite creature. And an eager pupil. I’ve taught you well.”

Darcy slipped the cloak into Loki’s waiting hands. “I learned to lie long before I met you.”

Anger twisted Loki’s features, disappearing as quickly as it appeared. “If you let me, I would make them pay for what they did to you.”

“No.” Darcy spoke sharply, possibly more so than was safe.

“They _hurt_ you.”

“They neglected me – there’s a difference. Besides,” Darcy shrugged, knocking away the hand Loki had wrapped around her shoulder, “until you exact your punishment on _your_ parents, do not tell me how to handle mine.”

Loki hissed like a scalded cat. Darcy stepped out of the shadows, wincing as the icy wind bit into her skin.

A hand on her arm tugged her back. She stumbled, rocking into Loki’s chest. He kissed her, sharp teeth and warm breath. Darcy’s skin flared as if burned where he touched her. The blare of a horn, and the moment was broken. Loki vanished and Darcy was left panting and dazed as the city reasserted itself around her.

Steeling herself, Darcy cast about for a street name. _York Avenue_ : a 30 min walk to Stark Tower without a coat.

People stared as Darcy made her way to the Tower. She caught a glimpse of herself in a storefront and knew what they must see: eyes too large in a pale face, hair tumbled and dark, clothes alien and skin yellow with old bruises. She looked half-mad; she looked like she was on fire. A mother with her children hurried to shield them from her gaze; a cop moved towards her and then veered away as if propelled by unseen forces. The world was sluggish around her and Darcy’s mind was full beyond capacity.

A bell jangled in a doorway, and Darcy’s mind tipped sideways.

_She was lying on the ground, stone damp and cool beneath her. Water trickled nearby and beneath the surface of the lake blue lights flitted to and fro. Loki was playing with a chandelier of tiny bells, letting them roll across her thigh, up her abdomen, skirting the territory of her breasts. He was telling her of a story – of how the Dwarves had offered him a wager; Loki was Shylock before Shakespeare ever held a pen. Darcy made a grab for the bells and they tumbled end over end. Loki laughed and rolled them into the water, mouth sealed across hers the lake closed over their heads._

Darcy stumbled. She felt hungover and she felt high. The world was split between blinding light and impenetrable shadow. She could hear Loki singing in her head and her feet were cold.

A cry sounded behind her and Darcy turned. Jane was pushing through the crowds, shoving people out of the way with more strength than should be possible in a woman of her size. Darcy was nearly bowled off her feet as Jane crashed into her. Warm arms, and the wool of an expensive coat, filled Darcy’s vision. Jane was babbling, crying and laughing and clinging to Darcy so tightly she could barely breathe.

She was bundled into a cab, Jane’s hand wrapped tightly around her own, Jane urging the driver to go faster – quick as possible, Star Tower, right away. The cab swerved through the traffic and Darcy fought to keep herself in the here and now.

It was a problem she had faced since letting Loki drag her from the Tower to his obsidian hideaway. Her mind felt like chocolate, half-melted and losing form. It was a struggle to keep her thoughts in one place – they liked to wander, slipping from the mould and trickling into whatever crevices the universe left unattended. Loki had thought it marvellous when she was with him. Whenever he had found her with her mind slipping, he had simply laid himself beside her and gone along for the ride. He’d let her choose their course, pointing out all the threads of knowledge forming the cosmic web. Yggdrasil had welcomed him like a son; Darcy as a new-found daughter. There was no malice in his actions; Loki had delighted in the journey – a prince touring his kingdom with his bride.

The cab jerked to a stop and Darcy’s head snapped on her neck. The click of Fenrir’s jaws echoed in her mind, and as Jane thrust money into the driver’s hand, Darcy stroked a finger between the ears of a wolf to whom she might be a mother.

The Avengers rushed her, the moment she was in the Tower. Darcy took a breath and with an effort of will hauled her thoughts into order. The door of the cage slammed shut, and all thoughts of stars and universe were locked firmly on the outside. She blinked and the world regained its focus. Darcy could think and think clearly. She knew who she was and where she’d been and what she had to do next.

She answered all Natasha’s questions with the shell-shocked honesty of a victim. S.H.I.E.L.D. spoke through Black Widow as Hawkeye watched for tells. Tony tried to block them – out of a sense of responsibility or protectiveness, it wasn’t clear – but eventually, Bruce escorted him out. Darcy completed her interrogation secure in the knowledge that she was still points ahead. The scoreboard was tucked into her mind – four teams squaring off in a game where the rules had yet to be defined. S.H.I.E.L.D vs. Loki vs. The Avengers vs. Darcy – on and on in a tessellating reflection, mirror reflecting into mirror.

“I’m tired.” Darcy said eventually. “I need to lie down.”

Natasha frowned, but nodded and Jane led her to the same room she had stayed in last time. The sheets had been changed: blue instead of cream.

Jane settled in beside her without asking for permission. She stroked a hand down Darcy’s hair, humming a lullaby beneath her breath. Darcy let her do it. If it gave Jane comfort, she could handle the intrusion.

oOo

_Loki was stirring a cauldron; the hearth was one he had laid himself. Darcy ran a brush through her hair, feet bare against the floor. Shadows played across Loki’s chest, light chasing dark as smoke curled past his face._

_Loki beckoned her toward him, smiling as his arm slid around her waist._

_He told her, “Watch.”_

_Darcy laughed as the liquid gold turned to lead. “Isn’t it supposed to work the other way around?”_

_Loki laid his lips against her hair. “No one ever made effective weapons out of gold.”_

oOo

Darcy muttered and rolled over in her sleep. The movement jostled Jane awake. Pushing herself up on one elbow, she frowned when she saw the sheen of sweat coating Darcy’s face. The whirr of the climate controls sounded and Jane felt cool air rush against her skin. Darcy murmured beside her, syllables lost to the slur of dreams. Mouthing her thanks to the ceiling, Jane settled back down to sleep.

oOo

_The night beat a drum in Darcy’s veins. Loki was a solid press of heat beside her, sheets tangled around his waist. The weight of his arm bracketed her breasts, thumb stroking idly over her skin, even in sleep._

_Floating in a chasm of time, stars were born and galaxies died. Darcy watched as a phoenix rose from the dying embers of a nebula and took flight. Their obsidian tomb was a marble, rolled across the surface of the universe and Darcy could see everything through its translucent walls. They drifted in a realm of space inhabited by beings more beautiful that Darcy could describe; their very existence so completely alien that even the All-Tongue struggled for a frame of reference. Loki had been in his element, diving in with all the thirst of the anthropologist and all the curiosity of the alchemist. Darcy had danced along behind, spinning in the footsteps of giants as children fought to hold her hand. It was a world enchanted: Utopia. And they had welcomed Loki with open arms._

_Darcy had asked him why? Why if he was the God of Mischief and Lies, the Mother of Monsters, did they treat him like a favourite son?_

_She’d feared his answer; feared his taking offence; feared his anger. But he’d smiled, kissed her and told her he was more than that. And they saw that here._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, dear readers. The floor is open to you. Critique this chapter - _please_. I need to get a sense of what worked/what didn't work before bringing the next chapter to you. At the moment, I feel that the weave of the story is becoming too loose, but I want feedback from what you as readers think. What would you like to see done differently, what are you enjoying? Am I losing you? That's the main question. So - let me know what you think and let's see if I can get the next chapter to you at a fraction of the time it took for this one to come.

**Author's Note:**

> The poems quoted at the beginning of each chapter are taken from Elizabeth Vongvisith's collection: Trickster, my beloved: poems for Laufey's son. I love this collection and it was, in part, the inspiration for this fic. It's available from amazon if anyone is interested.


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